
O '' <s 



Class _ 

Book ^ C' 



PRESENTED BY 



THE PATH OF THE 
CONQUISTADORES 



THE PATH OF THE 
CONQUISTADORES 

TRINIDAD AND VENEZUELAN 
GUIANA 



BY 

LINDON BATES, Jr 

AUTHOR OF "THE RUSSIAN ROAD TO CHINA," ETC. 



WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1912 



.03 









At** 



CONTENTS 





I. 


The Conquistadores . 


PAGE 
I 




II. 


Trinidad . . 


. 50 




III. 


The Serpent's Mouth 


• 97 




IV. 


Up the Orinoco 


• 135 




V. 


The City of Bolivar . 


. 188 




VI. 


On the Llanos 


. 223 




VII. 


The "Delta" . 


• 275 






Index .... 


• 303 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Simon Bolivar, "El Libertador 



Frontispiece 



From a painting by Francis M. Drexel. By permission of Mrs. John 
Duncan Emmet. 



Raleigh's attack on Port-of-Spain 

From an old engraving. 



FACING PAGE 
. 18 



Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary 
of Venezuela's Independence at Ciudad 
Bolivar . . . . . .34 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

FACING PAGE 

The Dragon's Mouth and Madame Tetteron's 



Tooth 
Villa near Port-of-Spain 
Trinidad Negroes 
The Sweetmeat Seller 
Indigenous Cricket . 
Queen's Park 
A Street in San Fernando 
A Mud Volcano in the Oil Region 
The Asphalt Lake . 
Cliffs near Cedros Point . 
The Serpent's Fangs 
Along the Orinoco . 
Aboriginal Guarano Indians 
The Laundry Women of Barrancas 
Monkey Steaks 
Street Scene in San Felix 
Calle de Orinoco, Ciudad Bolivar 
A Belle of Bolivar 



List of Illustrations 

FACING PAGE 

The Cathedral, Ciudad Bolivar . . .214 

"Buen Mula" ..... 226 

Primitive Transportation .... 236 
"The Delta" . . . . .292 

MAP . . . . . . . At end 



vii 



THE PATH 
OF THE CONQUISTADORES 



THE CONQUISTADORES 

O IX battered caravels were slowly near- 
^-^ ing the coast of South America. 
Their planking, warped and parched by 
weeks of sailing beneath the torrid sun, 
showed gaping seams. Long strings of 
weeds trailed from their sides. They were 
in momentary danger of sinking from their 
leaks. None had more than one cask of 
water. 

On the narrow poop-deck of the largest 
vessel stood a tall, gaunt, lonely figure. 
His long white hair hung lankly down. 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

His eyes were bloodshot from endless 
watching. His painful movements wit- 
nessed the rackings of gout. His harsh 
features betrayed the anxiety which his 
iron resolution would hide from his men. 

It was the last day of July, 1489. 
Weeks of sailing, of hardship, of waiting, 
of hope deferred, had told on commander 
and crew. The latter were in a state of 
mutinous panic. Hungrily the Admiral 
peered ahead over the tropic sea. 

Suddenly a sailor at the masthead cried 
aloud, " Land ! land ! " The crew crowded 
to the rail. Dimly, in the distance, on the 
port quarter, appeared the summits of 
three mountains. 

"Change the course; put in!" ordered 
the Admiral. 

The caravels swung slowly around and 
headed inshore. As the fleet drew nearer 
it was seen that the three peaks were 
united upon one base. 

" A miracle ! " exclaimed one of the 



The Conquistadores 

sailors. " To-day is Trinity Sunday, and 
yonder is the Trinity." 

11 Trinidad we shall call this land," said 
the Admiral. 

By evening the vessels were close to 
shore. The men on the decks of the 
caravels could see huts nestled among 
the palms and people moving on the beach. 

" It is fresh and green as the gardens 
of Valencia in the month of March," 
exclaimed one of the men joyfully. 

Skirting the shore of the Island of 
Trinidad, the vessels reached the entrance 
to the Gulf of Paria. Across the strait 
could be dimly descried the mainland 
of South America. 

"Out with the anchors," called the 
commander. "This current is making a 
roaring noise like the sound of breakers 
against the rocks." 

The ships hove to and anchored off 
the Point of Arenal. The perilous pas- 
sage between the island and the continent, 

3 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

"The Serpent's Mouth," lay ahead. The 
tired sailors ate their scanty meal of 
mouldy biscuit and then, wearied out, 
slept. Columbus watched on. 

" In the dead of night," he later wrote to 
Ferdinand of Spain, "while I was on deck 
I heard an awful roaring that came from 
the south towards the ship. I stopped 
to observe what it might be, and I saw 
the sea rolling from west to east like a 
mountain as high as the ship. To this 
day I have a vivid recollection of the 
dread I then felt lest the ship might 
founder under the force of that tremen- 
dous sea. But it passed by, and on the 
following day it pleased the Lord to 
give us a favourable wind, and I passed 
inward through that Strait, and soon 
came to still water. In fact, some water 
which was drawn up from the sea 
proved to be fresh." 

Over waves darkened with silt brought 
down by the mighty Orinoco from the 
4 



The Conquistadores 

distant Andes, the Admiral sailed into 
the Gulf of Paria. He landed on the 
western coast of Trinidad and renewed 
his stock of fresh water. Then through the 
northern passage, the Dragon's Mouth, he 
sailed to the Island of Margarita. Indians 
were fishing here. The Admiral sent 
some of his sailors to get food for the 
ships. To their surprise and delight the 
men found that the natives were diving 
for oysters which contained pearls. The 
Indian women who came out in coriaras 
to the ship were festooned with gems. 
Sailors were sent on shore. One of 
them exchanged an earthenware plate for 
four strings of pearls. The cacique of the 
island gave the visitors heaping handfuls. 

" Men, we have reached the richest 
country in the world," exclaimed the 
Discoverer. 

So came the first of the Conquistadores, 
and the fatality that followed them one 
and all found in him its earliest victim. 

5 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Even while Columbus was opening to 
Spain the untold wealth of the New 
World, intriguers at Court were tearing 
at his favour with the King. He was 
accused of secreting the bulk of the 
treasure due to the Sovereign, of trying 
to keep for himself the Pearl Island, of 
plotting to destroy all other Spaniards. 
Ferdinand sent a judge, secretly an 
enemy, to investigate. Columbus saw the 
documents which might have evidenced 
his good faith confiscated, the treasure 
ready for transportation to Spain seized. 
In crowning indignity, he and his brother 
were put into irons and sent home. 
The vessel's captain would have released 
the Admiral's bonds on the way. Proudly 
Columbus refused to have the irons 
removed save by the royal order. When 
the vessel reached Cadiz, Ferdinand 
made what reparation he could. But 
ever after the Discoverer kept the fetters 
in his chamber, and directed that at 
6 



The Conquistadores 

his death they should be buried with 
him. 

In the wake of Columbus came year 
by year a swarm of adventurers seek- 
ing the fabled wealth of the Indies. 
In their turn they found gold ornaments, 
pearls, and emeralds in possession of 
the Indians. Alonzo de Ojeda reached 
the Bay of Maracaibo and named the 
land Venezuela, because the huts of the 
natives, built on piles, reminded him of 
the Queen of the Adriatic. Places on 
the Island of Trinidad, in Margarita, and 
the mainland of South America were 
precariously occupied by Spaniards, who 
first trafficked with, then oppressed, then 
enslaved the natives. 

None have more graphically described 
the conditions of this period of ruthless 
conquest than the Dominican Friar, 
Bartholomew de Las Casas, writing forty 
years after the discovery. 

"In the yeere 1526, the King our 

7 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Soveraigne, being induced by Sinister 
informations and perswasions damageable 
to the State, as the Spaniards have 
alwaies pained themselves to concele from 
his Majestie the damages and dishonours 
which God and the Soules of men, and 
his State doth receive in the Indies, 
granted a great Realme, greater than all 
Spaine, Venezuela, with the government 
and entire jurisdiction, unto certain 
Dutch Merchants, the Welzers of 
Augsburg. 

" These same entering the country with 
three hundred men, they found the people 
very amiable, and meeke as Lambes, as 
they are all in those parts of the Indies 
until the Spaniards doe outrage them. 
These have leyd desolate a most fertile 
land full of people. They have slayne and 
wholly discomfited great and divers 
nations, so farre forth as to abolish the 
languages wont to be spoken. They have 
slayne, destroyed, and sent to hell by 
8 



The Conquistadores 

divers and strange manners of cruelties 
and ungodlinesses more I suppose than 
four or five millions of souls. 

"On the He of Trinitie, which joyneth 
with the firme land of the Coast of Paria 
and where the people are the best disposed 
and most inclined to vertue, in their kind, 
of all the Indians, there went a Captaine 
Rover in the yeere 1510 accompanied with 
sixty or seventie other pettie Theeves. 
The Indians received them as their 
oune bowels and babes. The Spaniards 
builded a great house of timber and 
perswaded the Indians to enter. Then 
laying hands on their swords they began 
to threaten the Indians, naked as they 
were, to kill them if theye did stirre, 
and then bound them. And those which 
fled, they hewed them in pieces. There 
were an hundred and forescore persons of 
them which they had bound. They got 
them to the He of St. John, where they 
sold the one moitie, and thence to the 

9 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

He of Hispaniola, where they sold the 
other moitie. 

"As I reprehended the captain for this 
notable treason he made an answer : — 

" ' Sir, quiet yourself for that matter. 
So have they commanded me to do and 
given me instruction. But I never found 
father nor mother save in this He of 
Trinitie in respect of the friendly courtesy 
the Indians showed me.' 

"They have singled out at times from 
all this coast, which was very well 
peopled, above two millions of souls. It 
is a tried case that, of Indians so robbed, 
they cast the third part into the sea. For 
they prepare but a very small deal of 
sustenance and water. Wherefore they 
die for hunger and thirst, and then there 
is none other remedie but to cast them 
over the Boord into the sea. And verily a 
man among them did tell me, that from 
the He of Lucayos unto the He of 
Hispaniola there trended a ship all 
10 



The Conquistadores 

alongst, without that it had either 
compasse or Mariner's Card, being guided 
onely by the tracks of dead Indians' 
carkasses floating upon the seas. 

"The tyrannie which the Spanish 
exercise over the Indians is one of the 
cruellest things that is in the World. 
There is no hell in this life nor other 
desperate state in this World that may 
be compared unto it." 

Again and again the Indians rebelled. 
With hideous cruelties they tortured the 
Spaniards who fell into their hands, 
pouring molten gold down their throats, 
crying, "Eat! eat gold, Christian!" But 
the arms and discipline of the Spaniards 
were in the end always victorious. 

The behaviour of the Friars during 
this period is of everlasting credit to 
them and to their Church. Massacred 
in numbers by the infuriated natives, 
who could not differentiate between the 
monks and the savage oppressors of 

ii 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the same race, scorned and bullied by 
the soldiers and the adventurers, these 
devoted men did their best to alleviate 
the lot of the Indians. Las Casas 
reached the Emperor Charles V, and 
pleaded, at first in vain, the cause of 
Christianity. Father Roderic Minaia 
appealed to the Pope, who loosed the 
thunders of a Bull upon the oppressors. 
Armed with the papal mandate, the 
Friars again approached Charles V, 
who was at last persuaded to send an 
honest man to investigate. Upon the 
latter's report, he decreed at once the 
freedom of all Indian slaves. Despite the 
seriousness of the blow to Spanish indus- 
tries in the New World and the protests 
of his officials, it was executed with a fair 
degree of loyalty. The lot of the Indians was 
never again quite what it had been before. 

During the half century after the dis- 
covery the Spaniards had been mostly on 
islands or near the coast. As time went 

12 



The Conquistadores 

on they came into touch with the tribes 
of the interior. 

The conquests of Mexico, Peru, and New 
Granada in turn poured millions of money 
into Spain, firing the imagination of every 
man. The idea of a great civilized nation 
in the interior of South America, richer 
than any yet conquered, started from the 
legends of the Indians. Their statement 
that gold came from far inland fructified 
readily in minds fallow to marvels. Thus 
sprouted and grew with tropic luxuriance 
the belief in El Dorado. 

In his letter to Cardinal Bempo, the 
chronicler Oviedo records clearly and as 
actual fact the existence of " A great King, 
bruited in those lands, covered with golden 
powder, in such fashion that from head to 
foot he was like a figure of gold, graven 
by the hand of a rare artificer. The gold 
is stuck to his body by an aromatic resin. 
But since this would irk him as he slept, 
every night the King bathes and every 

13 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

morning once more is he gilded, which 
shows that the Kingdom of El Dorado 
is marvellously rich in mines." 

A great city, " Manoa," on the shores 
of a lake called Parime, palaces with 
columns of massive gold, soldiers "armados 
de piecas y joyas de oro," — endless were 
the details filling in the picture of the 
realm of the Gilded Man. 

Rumour was precise about everything 
save the location of the city of Manoa. 
Some tales placed it at the foot of the 
Andes, in the highlands of Peru or New 
Granada. Some in Guiana, far up the 
Caroni River, which joins the Orinoco just 
before the latter spreads out into the great 
delta. When the Andes region had been 
crossed, so often and so fruitlessly, the 
hopes of the goldseekers turned and still 
clung to the location on the Caroni of 
which Milton wrote : — 

"Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons 
Call El Dorado." 

14 



The Conquistadores 

The famous map of Hondius showed 
definitely in Guiana the huge lake of 
Parime and the Golden City of Manoa 
on its border. 

The first expedition up the Orinoco was 
that of Diego de Ordez. He was one of 
the Conquistadores of Mexico, granted the 
right to bear on his coat of arms the 
Burning Mountain of Popocatapetl. He 
was named Adelantado of all the country 
he could conquer between the Amazon 
and the Welzers' concession in Venezuela. 
In his venture he saw " emeralds as big 
as a man's fist." Far up the Orinoco he 
heard of " a mighty king with one eye, and 
animals like deer that are ridden as horses." 
Along the Caura he saw natives who 
anointed themselves with turtle fat and 
powdered themselves with glittering mica. 
His trip gave a considerable impetus to 
the belief that here at last was to be found 
El Dorado. 

Next came, with a great expedition of 

r 5 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

two thousand, Don Antonio de Berrio y 
Oruna, son-in-law of the Conquistador of 
New Granada, Ximinez de Quesada. 
Landowners in Spain sold their family 
estates to accompany him. Ten secular 
ecclesiastics and twelve Observantin monks 
joined the adventurer. The cacique of 
Marequita, which bordered the Orinoco 
near where San Felix now stands, came to 
Cumana at about the same time with a mass 
of golden images to trade. This event 
and the story of one Juan Martinez, who 
said that he had been captured by Indians 
on the expedition of Ordez and had been 
taken from town to town until he had 
actually reached "the Imperial and Golden 
City of Manoa" and had seen the " Inca of 
Guiana," inflamed the party to the highest 
point. De Berrio's expedition started 
from Marequita southward into Paragua. 
Thirty men of the two thousand 
ultimately straggled back. De Berrio 
retired, crushed and bankrupt in every- 
16 



The Conquistadores 

thing save hope, to Trinidad, and made 
his headquarters in Port of Spain. 

Here, in 1594, there appeared an Eng- 
lishman, Captain Widdhon, who landed 
and made many inquiries, to the great 
suspicion of the Governor. Eight of his 
sailors disappeared in Trinidad. Captain 
Widdhon left as mysteriously as he had 
come. He was the scout for Sir Walter 
Raleigh. 

On March 22, 1595, with an imposing 
force, Elizabeth's favourite himself cast 
anchor outside of Port of Spain. Should 
he attack the Spaniards, breaking his 
Queen's peace, or sail on ? Long and 
serious was the discussion with his officers. 
Then he took his decision. " To depart 
four hundred or five hundred miles from 
my ships and leave a garrison in my back, 
interested in the same enterprise, which 
daily expected supplies from Spain, I 
should savour very much of an ass." He 
ordered an immediate attack. 

c 17 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

On the excuse that the eight missing 
sailors had been murdered by the Spaniards 
Raleigh surprised Port of Spain and 
slaughtered its garrison. Then, sending 
Captain Colfield with sixty men and follow- 
ing himself with forty, he marched to 
St. Joseph, stormed it, and captured the 
Governor, de Berrio. 

The latter was carried up the Orinoco in 
the hope that he might be able to supply 
information. This first expedition of 
Raleigh's was, however, an utter failure. 
The falls of the Caroni prevented a passage 
up its stream. The tropic jungle was im- 
penetrable. Raleigh returned to Trinidad, 
released de Berrio, and sailed sadly home. 

De Berrio moved over to San Thome, 
now Los Castillos, on the Orinoco, and 
established a settlement preparatory to 
another march inland. Shortly afterwards 
he died, worn out with hardship, defeat, 
and disappointment. Twice more Raleigh 
sent out expeditions — one in 1596, under 
18 



The Conquistadores 

Lawrence Keymis, another in 1597. 
Despite Von Humboldt's polite sneer, 
Raleigh did actually find a great gold 
region, as the millions taken of late years 
from the Callao mine attest. Rather too 
imaginatively, however, he wrote, on his 
return : — 

11 Every mountain, every stone in the 
forests of the Orinoco shines like the 
precious metals. If it be not gold, it is the 
mother of gold." 

Meanwhile word was constantly carried 
to Europe of the riches of Guiana. 
Francis Sparry, left behind on Sir 
Walter's expedition, captured by Spaniards 
and taken through much of Guiana, 
drifted back to England. 

"In the province of Guiana," he testified, 
11 is much natural and fine gold, which 
runneth between the stones like veines. 
Of which gold I had some store, but now 
the Spaniard is the better for it. 

"Camalaha is a place where they sell 

19 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Women at certain times, in the manner of 
a Faire. In this faire, which is to the 
south of Orinoco, I bought eight young 
women, the eldest whereof I thinke never 
saw eighteene yeeres, fore one red-hafted 
knife which in England cost mee one 
halfe-pennie. I gave these Women away 
to certain Salvages which were my friends." 
An alluring prospect for the adventurous ! 

To Raleigh the Gilded Man still beckoned. 
In 1617, in person, he led a final search 
for Manoa. It was a last and a desperate 
gamble. Once more he was to beard the 
King of Spain. James stood ready to 
profit by success or to disavow failure. 
On New Year's Day, 161 8, Raleigh's men 
under Keymis landed at San Thom6. 
A brave and wary Spaniard, Geronimo de 
Grados, laid an ambuscade for the English, 
who had intended to land merely, and 
not attack until next day. 

"The common sort," says Raleigh, 
"were so amazed as had not the Captains 
20 



The Conquistadores 

and some other valiant gentlemen made 
a head and encouraged the rest, they had 
all been broken and cut to pieces." 

The Spaniards, after a sharp engage- 
ment, fell back, and were reinforced by 
a new band, led by Diego Palomegue, the 
Governor. Young Walter Raleigh, son of 
the Admiral, rallied the English. He 
was shot by an arquebuse ball, and, as he 
stood reeling, was felled with the butt-end 
of a gun. 

" Go on : may the Lord have mercy on 
me and prosper your enterprise ! " he cried 
to Keymis. These were his last words. 

The Spaniards were broken at last ; their 
refuge, the monastery of St. Francis, 
was stormed, and Raleigh's men sailed up 
the Orinoco as far as the Narrows, where 
Ciudad Bolivar now stands. Sir Walter 
landed at Soledad, climbed the hill, looked 
over the Orinoco stretching away into 
the west like a silver ribbon, and then 
turned back. 

21 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Keymis committed suicide after the 
failure of this expedition. Sir Walter 
was executed on October 29, 16 18. 
King James wavered, but the Spanish 
King was insistent upon his enemy's 
death. "Tis a sharp medicine, but a 
sound cure for all diseases," Sir Walter 
said as he felt the axe's edge. 

Spain strengthened her grip on the 
continent. She gradually worked inland, 
fighting and conquering the Indians, 
attacked herself at sea by adventurous 
pirates and admirals. Her dominion in 
Venezuela was never again, however, 
seriously challenged by a European foe. 

With Trinidad the history was different. 
The island was surprised in 1640 by 
the Dutch, who " found no booty"; in 
1672 by Sir Tobias Bridges, who came 
over from Barbados to assault it. In 
1677 the French under the Marquis de 
Maintenon, aided by some pirates from 
Tortuga, made a landing and carried away 
22 



The Conquistadores 

as plunder a hundred thousand "pieces- 
of-eight." In 1687 the Carib Indians re- 
volted, murdering the Governor and most 
of the whites on the island. In 1690 
Levassor de la Touche, and in 17 16 
Blackbeard Tench the pirate, attacked 
Trinidad. Small wonder that in 1773 
only 162 male adult whites were recorded 
as living on the island. 

A French resident of Grenada, M. de 
Saint- Laurent, became, in 1778, the real 
founder of Trinidad. So impressed was 
he with its fertility that he bought a large 
area of land, drew up a Bill of Rights, 
or Cedula, got it approved by Spain 
in 1783, and secured the appointment of 
an excellent Governor, Don Jose Maria 
Chacon. 

In five years the population jumped to 
10,422, mostly French settlers from 
the neighbouring West India Islands. 
Toussaint l'Ouverture's rebellion of 1793 
in Haiti added another set of French 

23 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

refugees, and in 1795 still others came from 
the West India Islands, newly captured 
by the British. 

In 1797 a British fleet sailed through 
the Dragon's Mouth with twenty vessels 
and seven thousand men for the conquest of 
Trinidad. Sir Ralph Abercrombie's force 
so overwhelmingly exceeded Governor 
Chacon's that the latter burned his ships 
and surrendered without firing a shot. 
Colonel Thomas Picton was left behind as 
Governor. 

Whip in hand, Picton stalked grimly 
into the easygoing administrative offices 
of the island. In front of the Government 
House stood his gallows for grafters. The 
road-contractors trembled for his grim un- 
heralded visits. The cowed thieves feared 
his police hardly less than his police feared 
their iron taskmaster. A population in- 
creased from 17,000 in 1793 to 29,000 in 
1803 witnessed the order and prosperity 
which his man-of-war discipline produced. 
24 



The Conquistadores 

His reward was an impeachment for 
malfeasance in office. Acquitted, but 
under a cloud of suspicion as bitterly 
unjust as history has ever recorded, 
Picton left to fight through the Peninsular 
War with Wellington, and to perish 
gloriously at Waterloo at the head of the 
"thin red line" of three thousand which 
repulsed D'Erlon's sixteen thousand 
charging grenadiers. 

The frigate "Victory," with a lean, 
one-eyed Admiral on her deck, sailed by in 
1805. She was flagship of thirteen British 
men-of-war that had hounded twenty-eight 
French and Spanish vessels from the 
Mediterranean to the Caribbean. The 
inhabitants of Port of Spain, taking his 
fleet for an invading enemy, got under 
arms. But the Admiral sailed out anew 
to Martinique and back again across the 
Atlantic, still wolfishly pursuing the allied 
fleet. He met it at Trafalgar. 

Thus passed the last of the English 

25 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

conquerors, leaving Trinidad to grow 
into the ways of peace. Venezuela had 
not the good fortune of the island. 
She had still to live through tempestuous 
years. 

In the latter part of March, 1817, a score 
of horsemen were riding towards An- 
gostura from the northern sea-coast, some 
on mules, some on mangy horses. Most 
were sallow-skinned Creoles clad in civilian 
dress, sombrero on head, sword and pistol 
at the belt ; a few wore dingy uniforms. 
One, a gigantic negro, bore the insignia of 
an officer of the Black Republic of Haiti. 
Two, military of bearing, keen of eye, had 
the weather-worn red of the British Grena- 
diers ; half a dozen barefoot peons in 
ragged ponchos rode behind with the 
sumpter burros. 

A slight figure in faded blue regimentals 

faced with red led the band. Only 

thirty-four years old, he looked fifty. His 

dark and wrinkled face was drawn and 

26 



The Conquistadores 

puckered. Hardship, dissipation, and the 
bitterest disappointment had left their 
marks. 

Born of a noble and wealthy Caracas 
family, he had been sent to Europe at the 
age of sixteen. He had visited France, 
then under the Consulate, still vibrant with 
the recent revolution ; he had played and 
beaten at tennis the Prince of the Asturias, 
against whom as Ferdinand VII of Spain 
he was now in a duel to the death for the 
freedom of South America. He had 
married at the age of nineteen and been 
widowed within the year. He had re- 
turned to Paris and broken his health in 
wild living. At Rome he had refused to 
kiss the Cross on Pius VI Fs shoe. He 
had returned to Caracas and had taken 
part in the Junta which drove out Emperan, 
the Spanish Captain-General, forced the 
establishment of a National Congress, and 
drafted the declaration of Rights of April 
19, 1 810 — celebrated now as the Vene- 

27 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

zuelan national holiday. He had gone to 
England and had brought back the 
banished General Miranda. He had with 
his "Societa Patriotica" secured the 
Declaration of Independence of July 5, 
181 1. He had fought against the 
Royalists, been overwhelmingly beaten, 
and fled to Cartagena. He had returned 
while Spain was in the throes of conflict 
with Napoleon, and entered Caracas amid 
delirious enthusiasm in a chariot before 
which girls strewed roses, hailing him " El 
Libertador." He had been defeated once 
more and had been obliged to flee to 
Jamaica. A negro spy, hired to assassinate 
him, had killed his secretary by mistake. 
Now at length, by the aid of a Dutch ship- 
owner and the President of the Negro 
Republic of Haiti, he had been enabled to 
come back on this final attempt at South 
American liberation. 

"A monkey" (" Mono") he was once nick- 
named, and not unlike a monkey he seemed 
28 



The Conquistadores 

with his thin little body and his wrinkled 
face. But one look from his dark brooding 
eyes told of the fiery, unconquerable soul 
that burned in the slight frame. The 
man was Simon Bolivar, the Washington 
of Spanish America. On this March day 
in 1817, heading his tattered little cavalcade, 
he was passing through the anguish of his 
Valley Forge. 

The sky behind was reddened with the 
fires of Barcelona. The four hundred de- 
voted troops left to hold the Franciscan 
monastery had been butchered to a man, 
and the Spaniards were giving the city to 
the sack. One thousand of the towns- 
people had been massacred, some on the 
altar steps. Women and children were 
being hunted through the streets. Dogs 
roamed the by-ways eating their fill of the 
neglected bodies. 

Nor was Barcelona alone. Town after 
town that had given the Revolutionist 
harbour had fallen to the Royalists and 

29 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

had suffered a like fate. Boves, the 
butcher, condemned as a "ladron del mar," 
a renegade Revolutionist leading a band 
of desperadoes which the Spaniards them- 
selves nicknamed "The Corps of Hell"; 
Rosete, with his branding-iron " R " for the 
foreheads of Republicans ; Morales, whom 
even Boves had called M Atrocious " — these 
were all in the pay of Spain. Before them 
fell the town of Acumare. Its streets 
were left a shambles of the dead and the 
dying. Old men, women, and children lay 
with the rest. Valencia surrendered upon 
the oath of Boves, sworn in the presence 
of the Holy Sacrament, to respect the 
lives of everybody, yet as soon as arms 
had been surrendered, the Governor, 
ninety of the leading citizens, sixty-four 
officers, and three hundred and ten troops 
were slaughtered. Caracas surrendered 
to Boves on similar terms, which were 
similarly observed. Boves issued an order 
that any who had conspired against Spain 
30 



The Conquistadores 

should be shot and the slaughter re- 
commenced. Aragua was stormed and 
some three thousand townspeople were 
massacred. 

Now Barcelona, the last of Venezuela's 
northern cities, had fallen, and all that 
were left to follow Bolivar were fifteen 
officers and a few peons as their servants. 
Help from abroad there was almost none. 
President Madison had issued an order 
forbidding any aid from United States 
citizens to the struggling Revolutionists. 
Great Britain stood apathetically by her 
ally, Spain. The feeble little Negro 
Republic of Haiti alone had lent support 
in men and money, asking in return only 
Bolivars promise, which he loyally kept, 
to give freedom to the slaves of Venezuela. 

In the Colonies themselves even, piti- 
fully few were his sympathizers. The white 
population in Venezuela, but two hundred 
thousand in number, was practically the 
only element in the country interested in 

31 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

any way in the outcome of the struggle. 
These native-born Creoles, tyrannized over 
by the arbitrary power of the Viceroys and 
Spanish officials, excluded from office and 
emolument, while their trade and manu- 
facturing were garrotted by prohibitive 
laws, were in general dissatisfied with 
Spanish misrule, but were averse to the 
fearful sacrifice which resistance entailed. 
The King had refused to the Venezuelans 
permission to found a University in 
Maracaibo, because, in the opinion of his 
Fiscal, " it was unsuitable to promote 
learning in Southern America, where the 
inhabitants appeared destined by nature to 
work in the mines." The making of wine 
and oil, the growth of almonds or grapes, 
the manufacture of cloth, trade with 
the outside world or even with any 
Spanish port, other than Seville, were 
prohibited. Oppressed by these abuses, 
the native whites still refrained from 
rallying in any great number to Bolivar. 
32 



The Conquistadores 

The Indians, two hundred and seven 
thousand in number, stigmatized as "a 
race of monkeys, filled with vice and 
ignorance, automatons unworthy of repre- 
senting or of being represented " ; the 
negro slaves, sixty thousand in number, 
and the mixed bloods, forty-three thousand 
souls in all, though their grievances were 
far greater than those of the native whites, 
for the most part simply followed as they 
were led or paid. 

With but a small portion of the creole 
population as its support, the Revolution 
was imperilled hourly by the insatiable 
vanities and jealousies of the rival leaders. 
The Libertador had heard ring in his ears 
the cry of the mob at Guiria, " Down with 
Bolivar — up with Marino and Bermudez!" 
Would liberty never come? Was this 
river of blood all that the years of devoted 
effort were to bring ? Bolivar at the front 
of his twenty men hung his head in the 
agony of defeat and failure. 

D 33 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" Halt, halt ! " whispered one of the 
riders suddenly ; " what is that glitter 
beyond the trees?" 

A horse neighed to the right of the party. 

"An ambuscade!" cried hoarsely the 
first of the red-coated officers. 

The drooping figure of Bolivar stiffened, 
the dark eyes flashed, he turned in his 
saddle. Then in a voice of thunder he cried : 

" Columns extend right and left ! Attack 
on both flanks." 

It was an order to an imaginary force 
behind. The officers of his escort repeated 
the order and rode forward, discharging 
their pistols. The ambuscade melted 
away. The Spaniards, inferring a 
superior force, had taken flight. 

The insurgent party continued south- 
ward. As it marched, here and there wild 
llaneros and peons were drafted in by 
payment, promise, or impressment. With 
a force swelled to some hundreds, Bolivar 
reached the Orinoco, In the city of 
34 



The Conquistadores 

Angostura, to be later renamed in his 
honour Ciudad Bolivar, he surprised and 
blockaded the feeble Spanish garrison. 

Piar, the mulatto chief of a band of 
Republican cut-throats who had combined 
patriotism with profit by seizing the 
persons and property of the Capuchin 
Friars along the Caroni, now joined 
Bolivar. The latter sent him to attack 
San Felix. The bloodthirsty but efficient 
half-breed defeated the Spanish garrison 
and took prisoner the Governor, seventy- 
five officers, and two hundred men, all 
of whom he remorselessly slaughtered. 

Fearing now lest the monks whom Piar 
had captured would embarrass his move- 
ments, Bolivar sent a message to one of 
the mulatto's officers in charge, saying : — 

" Transport the prisoners to La 
Divina Pastora." 

The officer, not knowing of the town 
thus named, and supposing that he 
was to send the monks to "the Divine 

35 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Shepherdess" in heaven, forthwith mas- 
sacred them all. Neither of these atro- 
cities was punished. Of such deeds was 
the war. Murder marched alike with 
Royalist and Revolutionist. 

On July 17th the weak Spanish forces 
abandoned Angostura and Los Castillos. 
The Orinoco was in the possession of the 
Revolutionists. Bolivar's joy was intense. 
The capture of Angostura marked the 
turning-point in this struggle, as the 
capture of Trenton had signalled the turn 
of the tide for Washington. 

A few days after the capture of Angos- 
tura, Bolivar's staff met in the thick-walled 
house which lodged the Libertador. The 
members of his provisional Cabinet were 
there — Zea, Martinez, Brion, Colonel Wil- 
son, commander of the " Red Hussars," 
the English Dr. Moore. 

A map lay on the table before them, 
blue pins locating the Royalist troops. 
These occupied Cartagena, Valencia, 
36 



The Conquistadores 

Caracas, Barcelona, the cities all along 
the north coast. A few red pins showed 
the scattered centres of the Revolutionists : 
Santander in New Granada ; Marino and 
Bermudez on the north-east, opposite 
Trinidad ; Arismendi on the Island of Mar- 
garita. What was to be the next move ? 

"I propose that we stay here and meet 
the troops sent against us," suggested Zea. 

Colonel Wilson objected. " The Spaniards 
will beat Marino and Bermudez one after 
the other and then overwhelm us." 

" The Colonel is right," insisted Bolivar. 
" We must strike while they are separated." 

" Join Bermudez and Marino in the north- 
east," counselled Martinez ; " march west- 
ward along the coast and attack Morillo. 
He had only seven hundred Spaniards on 
the island when he attacked Arismendi." 

Bolivar shook his head. " Better fight 
alone than with them. They will sacrifice 
me, the Republic, and anything else to 
their vanity and love of power. You know 

37 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

how Bermudez drew his sword on me at 
Guiria and the plots to kill me." 

There was silence for a moment ; the 
fate of Spanish South America hung on the 
decision. A rattle of hoofs sounded out- 
side. A rough voice demanded admission. 

" I would see General Bolivar ; I come 
from Uncle Paez," called the mounted 
figure. 

" Bring him here," said Bolivar. 

A half-breed llanero, barefooted, clad in 
dirty cotton shirt and trousers, his head 
thrust through a great blue poncho, 
shambled in before the Council. 

" Which is Bolivar?" he asked; the 
leader was pointed out, and the llanero 
approached and put his hand familiarly 
on the officer's shoulder — the undisciplined 
plainsman's greeting. 

" Uncle Paez sends me to you to tell 
that the unconquered Bravos de Apure, 
with a thousand llaneros, will ride with 
you against the Spaniard." 
38 



The Conquistadores 

The members of the Council looked at 
each other. Paez with his vaqueros, roving 
over the boundless plains of the interior, 
from which for four years he had been 
harrying the Spanish outposts, was hardly 
known to most of these Caracefios and 
Margaritans, though Bolivar had heard of 
his exploits in New Granada. 

Bolivar seized the map. " Where is 
Paez?" he cried. 

" By the Apure, near San Fernando," 
said the peon. 

In a flash the Libertador's mind was 
made up. He turned to the llanero : 

" Ride to General Paez and say I march 
to join him." 

He rose to his feet and pointed to the 
map. "See, senores, here lies our route. 
We hold in Angostura the gateway to 
the Orinoco. As far as Santa F6 de 
Bogota there is no force to oppose us 
along the line of the Orinoco and Apure. 
We are in the rear of the enemy, whose 

39 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

strength is in the coast towns. Here we 
have cattle and horses. Here we can raise 
recruits from the llaneros, who care not 
for whom they fight and who are for us 
now that Boves is gone. If beaten, we 
can retreat like Tartars to the immeasurable 
plains. We will march to Apure and 
join Paez" — he hesitated. " Morillo will 
come down thus from the North in haste. 
We will meet him" — his finger halted, 
then pointed to the plain near Calabozo, 
"we will meet him here. Now gather 
our forces and organize. This is the death- 
grapple." 

Recruits flocked to Bolivar's standard. To 
pay them he confiscated the property of all 
Spaniards. The blood-stained Piar, found 
plotting against Bolivar, as Lee against 
Washington, was more summarily treated. 
He was shot and his force was attached to 
Bolivar's own. With two thousand 
infantry and one thousand cavalry the 
leader started from Angostura on the 31st 
40 



The Conquistadores 

December, 1817, up the Orinoco. Bolivar 
was joined on the way by his fugitive 
lieutenant, Zaraza, and a remnant of men. 
On January 31st, he united with General 
Paez and added one thousand cavalry and 
two hundred and fifty infantry to his 
army. 

Together they marched against Morillo. 
At El Dimante the Apure River barred 
their way. If it were not passed their 
sudden attack on Morillo would be 
checked, and the Spaniard could rally his 
forces. Moored to the opposite bank was 
a Spanish gunboat, three flat-bottomed 
flecheras, and several canoes. Bolivar 
paced up and down nervously. 

"You have brought me here, General 
Paez ; how will you get me across ? " he 
asked querulously. 

" On those flecheras over there," said 
Paez nonchalantly. 

Bolivar looked after him in amazement. 
Paez had already gone to his llaneros. 

41 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

"We must have those flecheras, 
children," he cried ; " who will come with 
Uncle Paez and capture them ? " 

" Choose whom you want, Uncle," was 
the answering shout. 

Fifty llaneros he picked out. On horse- 
back, lance in hand, they entered the 
stream and swam into the current. Two 
men were seized by caimans and dragged 
below as Bolivar's force breathlessly 
watched them. The forty-eight reached 
the flecheras and the gunboat, the 
Spaniards too surprised to resist seriously. 
In a tumult of triumph the boats were 
sailed across the river. On February 12th, 
Bolivar appeared before the surprised 
Morillo near Calabozo. The small 
Spanish force was attacked, beaten, and 
massacred without quarter. 

Then the fortunes of war turned against 

the Libertador. He was driven back to 

the Orinoco. But reinforcements had 

begun to come in now that he held firmly 

42 



The Conquistadores 

the great river artery. Several hundred 
blacks from Haiti joined him. An Irish 
Legion came, commanded by General 
Devereux, and a British officer, " English " 
by name, one of Wellington's trusted sub- 
ordinates, arranged for the equipment and 
shipment of twelve hundred good troops. 
Most of these were soldiers of fortune, 
veterans left without congenial occupation 
at the close of the Napoleonic wars. 

Notable among the volunteers was 
Francis M. Drexel, of Philadelphia, an 
Austrian portrait painter, who later, with 
Bolivar's backing, was to found the great 
banking house of which John Pierpont 
Morgan is now the head. 

By the end of 1818 Bolivar had won out 
sufficiently to issue a call for the Congress 
of Angostura to meet on January 1, 18 19, 
to frame a Republican form of government 
and replace the military dictatorship. 

The magnificent dream of the Libertador 
now took shape. It was to erect upon the 

43 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

ruins of Spanish power a great centralized 
Republic, extending from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, from the Caribbean Sea to the 
valley of the Amazon, covering all of 
Northern South America. Against the 
party that desired to carve up this vast 
territory into a number of small sovereign 
States loosely confederated, Bolivar threw 
the whole weight of his vast influence. 
He pleaded before the Congress : " I have 
been obliged to beg you to adopt centraliza- 
tion and the union of all the States in a 
Republic one and indivisible." 

The Congress wavered and then sided 
with Bolivar. There was decreed a unified 
Republic, including what are now the 
Republics of Venezuela, Colombia, and 
Ecuador. Of this Empire, named Greater 
Colombia, Bolivar was chosen the first 
President. 

The ideal of the Libertador had 
triumphed. But the bulk of this domain 
was yet to be conquered. The first assault 
44 



The Conquistadores 

was planned against the Spaniards in the 
north-west, in New Granada. 

Here the flames of resistance had been 
kept alight by General Santander, with 
whose ragged band it was Bolivar's 
immediate purpose to unite. By the 
middle of June, 1819, this preliminary 
move had been successfully taken. 

But the Andes had yet to be crossed, and 
at the worst time of the year. The passage 
of the Cordilleras with a tattered and 
steadily diminishing handful of famished 
men was an act of desperate courage. It 
meant four weeks of weary climbing over 
snow-capped peaks and through freezing 
torrents. The road traversed by the poor 
wretches was marked by crosses in memory 
of those who had perished in the snow 
sierras. But bevond these awful moun- 
tains lay the smiling plains of New 
Granada, and its populace was friendly to 
the Patriot cause. 

Disregarding all recognized rules of the 

45 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

game of war, Bolivar, who was in terrible 
need of provisions and arms, determined 
to leave the enemy across his line of 
communications and make direct for the 
important town of Tunja. It was taking 
a risk, but a necessary risk, and one that 
was completely justified by the result. 
For Barriero, the Spanish general, con- 
ceiving that he must fight for the defence 
of Tunja, gave Bolivar battle at Boyaea 
and was utterly routed. Barriero broke 
his sword across his knee and surrendered, 
with many officers and some sixteen 
hundred men. The Patriot army had to 
mourn the loss of only thirteen killed 
and fifty-three wounded. 

Everywhere now Bolivar was victorious. 
He marched to Bogota, from which 
Samano, the Spanish Viceroy, fled. 

Returning eastward, he fought the des- 
perate battle of Carabobo, which finally 
freed Venezuela from the Spanish yoke. 
The dogged heroism of the British 
46 



The Conquistadores 

Legion, which lost a third of its men and 
two commanders in succession, saved the 
day. As Bolivar rode past their shattered 
ranks that night he hailed them " Sal 
vadores de mi patria." All of its survivors 
were made on the field of battle members 
of the " Order of Liberators." 

On into Peru went Bolivar, proclaimed 
Dictator by the inhabitants. On the field 
of Ayacucho, while the Dictator was absent, 
his second in command, General Sucre, 
fought and won a last great battle in which 
the Spanish army was completely routed 
and dispersed. The ground for miles was 
strewn with the silver helmets of the 
Spanish hussars. 

Ayacucho, the death-blow to Spanish 
power in South America, was the culminat- 
ing point of Bolivar's career. Dictator of 
Peru, President of Greater Colombia, 
Organizer of the new State of Bolivia, 
his authority extended over a territory 
two-thirds as large as Europe. He had 

47 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

indignantly rejected all suggestions for 
monarchy and a personal dynasty. As the 
Libertador he had fought to free, not to 
enslave. For one brief moment as splendid 
a vision as man has ever cherished was real 
— the great South American Republic. 

Almost in an hour the whole structure 
fell. Against him rose the generals who 
had shared his glory, Santander in New 
Granada, Paez in Venezuela. Sucre, dis- 
satisfied, abandoned Bolivia. Peru de- 
manded the end of the dictatorship. 
Bolivar's ungrateful fellow-countrymen 
cried out against his inordinate ambition. 
In his home city of Caracas an attempt 
was made to assassinate him. 

Attacked on all sides by those whom 
he had befriended and raised to power, 
Bolivar resigned from the Presidency and 
retired to Cartagena. Even here the 
enmity of jealous hate hounded him. He 
prepared to leave South America for a 
refuge in the West India Islands. But 
48 



The Conquistadores 

before he could sail the end had come. 
Exhausted by the terrible exertions of his 
life of warfare, broken in spirit, bankrupt 
in hope, he died in December, 1830, at the 
age of forty-seven. So little had he 
personally profited by his supreme position 
that he had to be buried at the expense 
of his friends. 

Thus ended the long line of Conquis- 
tadores who battled for Trinidad and 
Guiana. For each was the draught of 
bitterness after all his heroism and all his 
glory. Columbus carried back to Spain in 
irons, De Berrio dead of disappointment, 
Raleigh executed by his treacherous King, 
Picton brought to trial for peculation, 
Nelson falling for a nation that refused his 
last prayer, Bolivar dying despised and 
penniless in the country he had freed, — 
tragedy, grim and relentless, had marched 
side by side with the Conquistadores. 



49 



II 

TRINIDAD 

HTHE green slopes of Tobago, where 
■*■ the shipwreck of the real Alexander 
Selkirk inspired the "Robinson Crusoe" 
of Defoe, have been left behind in the 
dark mists of the Caribbean. Ahead lies 
a shadowy range of mountain peaks, grow- 
ing every moment more clear as the dawn 
lights up their densely wooded sides and 
outlines the trees that crown their crests. 
A rush of crimson heralds the sun. 
The hills to the east slowly separate as 
the steamer forges on, and a narrow strait, 
the Dragon's Mouth, opens out. In the 
distance, to starboard, stretch Venezuela 
and the South American mainland. The 
5o 



Trinidad 

island of Trinidad, now close at hand, 
lies to port. 

The dazzling brilliance of the tropic 
sunrise sows the dark sea with glittering 
flame points. We go always nearer to 
the land. Suddenly a narrow passage, 
the Boco de Monos, appears, bending 
sharply to the left. Into it the 
" Marrowijne " turns. Through this 
channel the tidal current sweeps with a 
force that has piled many a ship upon 
the impending cliffs. The red-bearded 
Dutch captain and the first officer keep 
anxious watch, one on each side of the 
bridge. The crew stand alert at their 
stations. 

Gaunt black crags pierced by wave- 
hewn caverns, festooned with vines which 
droop to the water's edge, threaten on 
either hand. Madame Tetteron s Tooth, a 
jagged rock, rises close to the channel. 
Multitudes of birds swarm out from the 
little island to the right and surround 

5i 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the ship with raucous cries. A pelican, 
resting on the water, takes alarm, awk- 
wardly rises a stone's-throw distant, and 
flaps heavily away. 

A few moments and we are through 
the strait and into the placid calm of the 
protected bay. The ocean swells sink 
into ripples ; the tension of the crew 
standing at their stations slackens into 
the relief of a voyage virtually finished. 
Captain Drijver leaves the bridge. 

"We are at anchor before Port of 
Spain in an hour," he calls to Miss 
Graham, a Trinidadian returning from a 
visit to Canada. An irrepressible young 
American, who is slated for a six months' 
stay in a coast town of Venezuela as 
manager of a magnesite quarry, comes 
up, camera in hand. 

"The Royal Dutch Line is all right, 
Captain," he exclaims, "but I am not 
going past Hatteras by sea again. I'm 
going back by land." 
52 



Trinidad 

The seriously-minded English Colonial, 
returning from two months " at home " 
to his general merchandise establishment, 
the " Caledonian Stores " of Port of 
Spain, solemnly undertakes to instruct 
him as to the impracticability of going 
overland from Venezuela to New York. 

" You won't want to leave the tropics 
at all," volunteers Grath, late serjeant of 
the Philippine Constabulary, bound now 
for the Barber Asphalt Company works at 
Pitch Lake. " I spent just one winter 
in the North, and then I applied every- 
where for a position that would take me 
back to where it was warm." 

Miss Graham agrees with the ex- 
serjeant, but says that it is good to get 
North sometimes, " to thicken one's blood 
a bit." The six tank-builders imported 
from Oklahoma look apathetically at 
the shore where they are to spend the 
next year constructing steel storage-reser- 
voirs for an Oil Fields Corporation. 

53 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Glittering green areas of coco-nut palms 
nestling at the foot of the hill-sides stand 
out among the variegated tones of the trees 
on the slopes of the peninsula which 
the vessel skirts ; a bright red-and- 
white roof peeps out from the midst of 
a banana plantation ; flocks of gulls, 
fishers, and pelicans pass ; a dory driven 
forward by a swarthy crew creeps along 
the coast ; myriads of milky jellyfish float 
in the still water, whose glassy surface is 
broken from time to time by the rush of 
a shoal of little fish pursued by sharks, 
whose triangular fins sail menacingly past. 

The golf course is still laid out on 
the deck, where, during the six days 
from New York, Captain Drijver has 
held the field against all comers, vic- 
torious because of his matchless science in 
sending the discs into the " Marrowijne's " 
scuppers. But now it is deserted. For 
the last meal before landing the gong 
makes its announcement, and we descend. 
54 



Trinidad 

The irrepressible American opens rather 
early in the day his final bottle of the 
ship's champagne, as a finishing luxury 
before his six months' exile. Grath tells 
a last story about a rheumatic cripple in 
the Philippines, cured by the appearance 
of a Moro with a three-foot creese, en- 
deavouring to obtain a pass into Paradise 
by the slaughter of so convenient an 
infidel. Brown, boss of the tank-building 
gang, mourns silently the three men who 
deserted on the last jovial night in New 
York after he had paid their passage from 
Oklahoma. The bearded Dutch mate, 
sitting stiffly at table in his white tropical 
uniform, pays his parting addresses to 
Miss Graham. 

It is a hurried meal, for we are skirt- 
ing the hills of Trinidad and nearing 
port. Tiny islands appear, with houses 
perched on them as on the Thousand 
Isles of the St. Lawrence. A sloop is 
overtaken, all sail set, moving with the 

55 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

breath of wind that is stirring. The 
masts and stacks of larger ships are seen 
in the distance, and a steeple rises on the 
shore. The roadstead comes into view, 
and finally, with white houses amid green 
verdure and grey docks and the crowded 
sailing-ships in front, there is unveiled 
the city of Port of Spain. 

The Captain looks intently through his 
binoculars and turns around to us. 

"The bubonic plague is in Trinidad," 
he says. 

" Holy smoke ! " ejaculates one of the 
tank crew. 

Brown and the drillers look disconso- 
lately at the shore. There is a moment's 
silence. 

" Oh, there's nothing alarming in the 
plague," drawls Miss Graham phlegmatic- 
ally. "We are always having cases here 
— -only one or two among the natives, 
however." 

" Yes," says the English resident, " but 
56 



Trinidad 

it means quarantine. Jamaica wants to 
hurt our trade and puts up quarantine, 
and then the States quarantine Panama 
and you have to play hide and seek 
from port to port until you can find one 
where they will let you in and from 
which you can start for your destination. 
I knew some Venezuelans who had to 
take a ship to Grenada, from Grenada 
to Jamaica, and from Jamaica back to 
Venezuela to go the hundred miles from 
Puerto Cabello to Caracas." 

"The worst that can happen is that 
they do not allow you to return to the 
States," says Captain Drijver consolingly. 

A swarm of row-boats nears the 
" Marrowijne." Two heavy lighters bear 
down on her quarter, great brown lateen 
sails spread : negroes in dilapidated shirts 
and abbreviated trousers help the sails 
with long sweeps. 

A launch comes puffing out with sundry 
officials clad in white, escorted by two 

57 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

well-set-up negroes in dark blue uniforms 
and black straw hats bearing on the bands 
" Trinidad Constabulary." The mail-bags 
are taken up and piled on deck, together 
with the passengers' trunks and bundles. 

A long delay now occurs. We sit 
idly about with belongings heaped around 
us and wait and look at the docks and 
the shipping and the water. At last the 
word is given. Passengers, bags, and 
baggage go down the steps alongside into 
the launch, and we steam ashore. 

The landing is crowded with people. 
A horde of avid porters jump on board 
as we touch and seize all the luggage 
they can find. Three girls are on the 
dock to greet Miss Graham, a little dark 
Venezuelan to meet the American, an 
agent of the Oil Fields Company to guide 
Brown and the tank-builders to the train 
for New Brighton. We all jostle into 
the custom-house and assemble our 
baggage on the long tables. 
58 



Trinidad 

Sleepily a half-breed official pokes 
around in the bags. If one admits having 
fire-arms they go into bond until a licence 
is secured. All is over in five minutes, 
and you are free of Trinidad. 

The gateway from the custom-house 
is blocked by a disorderly mass of 
riotously vociferating negro hackmen, 
strangely clad in raiments ranging from 
antique liveries to brown overalls, with 
battered top-hats or straw sombreros 
perched indifferently on their heads. 
From them you are rescued by a neatly- 
uniformed half-breed chauffeur. Your 
luggage is crowded onto his machine, 
which gradually works clear of the dock 
and into Marine Square, simmering be- 
neath the morning sun. 

A hundred-foot strip of lawn with trees 
planted haphazard along it runs between 
the roadways on either side. We pass 
the colonnaded stores of the Trinidad 
merchants, the shipping companies' offices, 

59 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the quaintly called Ice House Hotel, 
the Union Club with its row of chairs 
on the terrace, and farther up the Roman 
Catholic Cathedral. 

Into Frederick Street the automobile 
turns. The whole narrow roadway is 
glutted with a motley swarm of many- 
toned humanity. Negroes in every sort 
of garb, from trim khaki to ragged 
overalls, clean-looking English business- 
men in white linen and pith helmets, 
dark Venezuelans with wide sombreros, 
sallow octoroons, and here and there an 
East Indian coolie in flowing white, tur- 
baned, barelegged. Clerks crowd the shop 
entrances. Goods heap the side-walks as 
at a Paris bazaar. A few blocks farther 
the crowd has thinned, and the shops are 
smaller and less pretentious. The chauffeur 
lets out an unearthly shriek from the horn 
— two natives jump aside, and away we go. 

Trinidad is new to automobiles, and 
there is no speed limit. A naively un- 
60 



Trinidad 

feeling editorial in the "Port of Spain 
Gazette " once bemoaned the coolies' habit 
of walking in the middle of the road 
because it is so unpleasant for automo- 
biling tourists to be obliged to run over 
people. The streak across Port of Spain 
which the automobile now makes is like 
the nightmare of a speed maniac. 

Stone houses with jealous white walls, 
over which peer great masses of red 
and purple flowers, airy wooden cottages 
embedded coquettishly in verdure, corner 
shops, native carts, messenger boys on 
bicycles, groups of negro women walking 
three abreast, graceful coolie girls — all 
dart by as if jerked from in front of 
your eyes. A cricket match is passed 
before you can see whether the ball is 
hit or missed. The level savanna at 
the base of the hills, with its race-course 
and football fields, is skirted, and the 
motor shoots through the palm-bordered 
entrance to the Queen's Park Hotel. 

61 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Here is rest. It is the antithesis to 
the bustle of the port and the delirium 
of the drive. An old darky in faded 
livery, " Methuselah," totters out and 
looks at you. Coolly-clad figures in 
rocking-chairs on the porch meditatively 
absorb their drinks without even doing 
that. After a time, a clerk appears and 
you sign the register. A while later a 
black boy comes and lifts your luggage 
from the motor. After a little longer 
interval the manager has reached the 
point of taking you for a long, slow, 
rambling walk which leads at length to 
the room that is reserved. 

It is a huge chamber half as large as 
a tennis-court. A wicker couch, two big 
cane arm-chairs, two tables, a gigantic 
bed and a chest of drawers constitute the 
furniture. The doors, the window-shades, 
and the walls for two feet down from the 
ceiling are lattice-work, open to all the 
winds that blow. A door in front opens 
62 



Trinidad 

into the garden facing the Savanna. 
In the courtyard behind, tame white 
egrets step daintily among the palms and 
a parrot and toucan screech to each other 
from adjoining cages. On one side is a 
row of sheds containing huge bath-tubs. 

The hotel regime is printed on a notice- 
board. Coffee is at seven, breakfast at 
eleven, tea at four, and dinner at seven. 
In effect, you are put on a two-meal 
basis, staving off mid-afternoon pangs 
with tea and toast. As breakfast is over 
at twelve, which hour is already rapidly 
nearing, it seems desirable to indulge 
now, calling the meal lunch, to justify 
eating at this time. So you go out on the 
veranda, which serves as a dining-room. 

Black waiters dressed in white serve 
you, with quarter-hour waits between 
courses, and there are brought the multi- 
tudinous dishes of a meal, which begins 
with hominy and progresses through the 
stock British stand-bys of bacon and 

63 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

eggs and liver and bacon. Indigenous 
additions follow: fried plantains and a 
strangely named fish whose consumption, 
according to the legend, will bring you 
back to Trinidad without fail. When 
fruits are reached you explore a new 
kingdom, — mangoes with their stringy 
seed ; little bananas three inches long, 
with a flavour never found in varieties 
shipped North ; juicy star-apples ; sour- 
saps with prickly green exterior and 
creamy paste inside ; sapadillas, in appear- 
ance brown and like a spherical potato, but 
inside granular with sugary sweetness. It 
is a wonderful collection. Why are they 
not exported in cold storage? $Qutin 
sabe ? 

It is a long function, this breakfast. 
One feels as if he had accomplished an 
important act when he joins the rest on 
the rocking-chairs of the portico. None 
but the heaviest of black Havana cigars 
seem appropriate, or at least none are 
64 



Trinidad 

procurable. You idly watch a company 
of negroes with a couple of energetic 
Englishmen at cricket practice on the 
Savanna. Farther off some cattle feed, 
strange humped beasts, zebu imported from 
India with the indentured coolies. Horses 
are being exercised for the forthcoming 
races on the track beyond the zebu. 

Magnificent trees are scattered here and 
there, — gigantic spreading samans, ban- 
yans with their myriad roots, cannon- 
ball trees bearing spherical black pods. 
In front of the houses that face the park 
stand, like sentinels, rows of towering 
royal palms. Splashes of vivid colour 
show here and there amidst the green : 
the poinsettia's flaming scarlet, the be- 
gonia's purple, the white of the matapile 
flowers. 

As the heat grows, the cricketers cease 

their laborious play. The portico chairs 

are largely deserted. It is hot, let no one 

doubt this. It is time for the siesta and 

f 65 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the bath which prepares you for a fresh 
start in the late afternoon. 

At four o'clock, refreshed, rested, and 
clean, the world reappears. There is a 
stir around the veranda. Englishmen 
on horseback ride up. Ladies in white 
come out and make tea for linen-clad 
visitors. Carriages, at first a few but 
soon a stream, pass by. 

A brougham with an ancient negro on 
the box stops before the hotel door, 
Methuselah potters over to give you a 
note. It is an invitation to drive from 
Mrs. Farrell, wife of the manager of one 
of the oil companies. You climb into the 
carriage and set out for your hostess's resi- 
dence. Big rambling houses embowered 
in gardens line the short way. A row of 
towering palms marks the Farrell land. 
In their yard a tame deer looks question- 
ingly at you. The whole front of the 
house is a big broad veranda, with tall 
white pillars supporting the roof. 
66 



Trinidad 

" We all drive in the cool of the after- 
noon," says Mrs. Farrell, who is awaiting 
you. " It is the most important function 
in the day." 

We enter the carriage, drive out of the 
grounds and swing into the procession 
that flows past the gateway. 

" Most of the ladies here do not get 
dressed until afternoon," she observes 
presently. " Mother Hubbards and carpet 
slippers, you know. Now I will point you 
out the lions." 

A dark middle-aged man with a very 
pretty girl beside him passes and bows 
ceremoniously. "That is Mr. Siegert and 
his daughter ; his place is beside the 
Queen's Park," says Mrs. Farrell. " He 
was a Venezuelan, but the revolutions 
drove him out. He came here with his 
family and makes the Angostura bitters 
which the monks used to brew." 

A brougham with a fine pair of bays 
goes by. " The Sandersons," says your 

6 7 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

hostess. " He is an American. His 
father got the flour monopoly of Venezuela 
and the family has still an interest in it. 
He married a Venezuelan and lives here 
most of the time. They have that big 
white house by the College." 

A solitary bearded man driving a dog- 
cart passes. " That is Graham, the richest 
man in Trinidad. They say he is the 
shrewdest too. He has a grant of Crown 
land planted with coco-nuts and cocoa. 
He has plantations all over the island." 

On the piazza of a big house with palms 
in front she points out Benoit Tomasi. 
" He is a Corsican, who came to Venezuela 
without a penny. He traded and built 
up a big business along the Orinoco. 
His nephew runs it now and he lives here. 
He owns the Callao Mine, but there is a 
lawsuit on and he can get nothing from it. 

" You have a letter for Mr. Robertson, 
have you not ? That is his automobile 
just turning in." 
68 



Trinidad 

You mention that you have received an 
invitation to dine with him to-night. 

" He is very interesting. He is as 
Scotch as if he had only been out of 
the old country a fortnight, but his family 
has been here for two generations. His 
father came from Scotland fifty years 
ago and started a mercantile house 
in Demerara. The son conducts the 
Trinidad branch of the firm ; but he 
keeps up his family connexion with 
Scotland and goes back every year. 
His wife is there now." 

A bearded man of distinguished ap- 
pearance salutes us from the promenade. 

" Baron Spejo, a Spaniard," says Mrs. 
Farrell ; "and yonder," nodding forward 
to a typically British figure on horseback, 
" is Major Bridges, of the Constabulary. 
He has seen service in Egypt and South 
Africa — was sent here after the Boer War. 
There beyond are Senor and Senora 
Gracia. They are nice people, but it 

69 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

is whispered that they are touched — negro 
blood, you know. It may not be so. It 
is fashionable for gossip here to blacken 
skins as well as reputations. " 

We leave the Savanna drive and its 
promenaders and turn to the left into the 
Maraval road, past a straggling negro 
settlement and into a wooded valley under 
the hills. The road runs between huge 
clumps of bamboos, in many places 
shading the way like a tunnel. Humming- 
birds flit here and there, the sacred " Iere" 
of the now extinct Carib Indians who 
welcomed the old Conquistadores. 

A delightful coolness fills the air, 
scented with the odour of a multitude 
of flowers. The contrast to the blaze 
of midday is luxuriously appreciated. 

We turn as dusk comes on. Slowly 
the sedate horses take us back to 
town. The peace of nature casts its 
spell over the dying day. As darkness 
gathers quickly, bats begin to dart and 
70 



Trinidad 

circle alongside. The chirp of insects, 
the cry of night-birds, the mournful 
" O-poor-me-one," which the negroes say 
is the call of the sloth, sound from the 
thickets. Light after light springs out from 
cottages along the road and from the 
town ahead. It is dark when the horses 
hoofs rattle on the gravel of the Farrell 
driveway. 

It takes some speedy dressing to make 
Mr. Robertson's dinner on schedule time. 
Even here in the tropics that stiff- 
bosomed rampart of British respectability, 
the dress-suit, is requisite. A dinner 
coat is permissible, but that is the ultimate 
concession. Mr. Robertson sends his 
machine to take you to his house, which 
is one of those facing the Savanna. 

As you enter the host is talking with 
another guest, Mr. George Stevenson, 
Mining Engineer, Member of the British 
Institute, fresh from the Galician oil- 
fields, called here to examine some 

7i 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Trinidad oil prospect. Soon after appear 
George Frothingham, a cocoa-planter 
with large estates in the middle of the 
island, a nephew of the host, fresh from 
the old country and being broken in at 
Robertson's stores, and Major Albert 
Bridges, of the Constabulary. 

We are introduced to the renowned 
" green swizzle " — a liquid whose translu- 
cent tinge fills the bottom of the glass, the 
green shading gradually into the dark red 
of bitters near the surface. Gin, lime, and 
soda have entered into its making, and 
the star-shaped swizzle-stick has been 
twirled within it. Its taste is unique ; its 
action suaviter in modo> fortiter in re. 

Green swizzles have a marked effect 
on people's conversational ability. Steven- 
son recounts stories of his start in the 
Indian Civil Service under Sir William 
Willcox, the famous engineer, whose 
genius threw the Assuan Dam across 
the full current of the Nile and redeemed 
72 



Trinidad 

a kingdom of waste land for Egyptian 
cultivation. " The most religious man I 
ever knew," adds the engineer; "he did 
not even swear when the berm of one 
of our irrigation canals gave way." 

" He never had to unravel a lawsuit 
between two time-expired East Indians," 
says Major Bridges. 

" He never tried to make cocoa-plant- 
ing pay with negro labour," grumbles 
Frothingham. " Those negroes are not 
worth a penny. If it weren't for the 
coolies there would not be a white planter 
in Trinidad. It is bad enough as it is." 

" Cocoa-men are always grumbling," 
says the host. " How would you like 
to have had sugar and to have seen your 
values wiped out by foreign beet-root 
subsidies? Why, you cocoa people and 
the coco-nut growers are all capitalists ! " 

Frothingham does not have much to 
say, for in fact he has not suffered in 
the sale of cocoa. "We have done well 

73 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

in cocoa for the Paris market, but that 
is only because chocolate is displacing 
coffee for the French petit ddjeuner" 
he admits grudgingly. 

The nephew breaks in: "You planters 
should encourage new uses for your 
product. Advertise and make anointing 
the body fashionable, as it used to be in 
Rome. That will help sell your coco-nut 
oil." 

" Can't you arrange that they use crude 
petroleum as well ? Our industry needs 
encouraging too, " observes the engineer. 

"We need all the oil you can pump 
as fuel for our battleships," declares 
Major Bridges. "Trinidad is the one oil- 
producing district under the British flag. 
These fields are shifting the whole 
balance of political power. Since these 
and others in Venezuela were discovered 
the German Government has been making 
soundings all around Margarita Island, 
which they say the Kaiser is trying to get 
74 



; 





Trinidad 

as a naval station. It is generally believed 
here that the British Admiralty is planning 
to beat them out by establishing a huge 
naval base at Port of Spain. Fortifying the 
islands at the Dragon's Mouth and Cedros 
Point overlooking the Serpent's Mouth 
will enable us to command both entrances 
to the Gulf of Paria. Then we will control 
the trade route from Europe to Panama, 
and to the east coast of South America." 

"They say the Standard Oil Company 
is trying to get control of the field already," 
comments Frothingham. 

"Well, oil is here all right," asserts 
the host. "The Pitch Lake people have 
shipped one tank-steamer full and are 
building sixteen big thirty-five-thousand- 
barrel tanks. And they don't usually 
spend any money foolishly — except what 
they give for revolutions in Venezuela." 

"We aren't like Venezuela," says 
the Major virtuously. 

"There is one good thing about 

75 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Venezuela," says Mr. Robertson, with a 
twinkle in his eye. " All the officials 
aren't sent from the old country. A 
native over there gets a chance some- 
times for something higher than school 
commissioner." 

The Major takes his host's remark very 
seriously. " But you can't have self- 
government here, with your population. 
You have two hundred and eighty 
thousand people in Trinidad. Half of 
them are negroes, a third are coolies, 
and the whites are of every nation and 
every tribe on this terrestrial ball." 

"You remember the story of how 
Toussaint l'Ouverture sprinkled salt 
over a handful of black dirt and said 
' Voila les blancs,' then shook the hand- 
ful together, opened his hand, and asked 
1 Oil sont les blancs ? ' Trinidad would 
be like Haiti in ten years if we gave 
you Home Rule." 

"Well," says Mr. Robertson, turning to 
76 



Trinidad 

you and speaking in his broadest Scotch, 
14 we'll forgie them in Lunnon if they'll 
send no more like yon wastrel." 

Everybody laughs at the Major, and 
then we pour him a drink of Scotch to 
cheer him up. 

The talk drifts to the indentured coolies. 
The engineer has studied their social 
system while in India. "All here are of 
the lower castes — sudras," he says, "and 
each goes down one degree by leaving 
India. It will take many payments to the 
priests when they return to procure 
redemption." 

" Many of them don't return at all," 
comments Robertson. " I have a lawsuit 
with a time-expired coolie freeholder about 
a road. They are the worst people for 
going to law you ever saw." 

44 1 should think they were," adds 
Frothingham, "except when their wives 
are too attractive to their friends. Then 
they slice the woman up with a machete 

77 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

and send the man a piece of her as a 
gift. But everything else they go to law 
about. There was a case up before the 
San Fernando Police Court last week. 
A free labourer named Bo Jawan, 
belonging to our Harmony Hall estate, 
came to the Government Savings Bank 
with his wife Jugdeah, making the air 
blue with Hindu expletives. The 
woman had deposited some money in 
her own name and the husband wanted 
to draw it. ' If you don't give me the 
money I will bring Mahabit Maharaj (the 
Governor) and the police,' he shouted. 
Jugdeah tried to run away, but the 
coolie made a tackle and got her by the 
leg. De la Rosa, the cashier, is a hot- 
tempered chap and he threw the man 
downstairs. The coolie summoned him 
for assault, and the wife proceeded to 
perjure herself by saying that she and 
her husband had tiptoed in, hand-in- 
hand, and had asked for her money 
78 



Trinidad 

together in a dulcet voice. De la Rosa 
got off, but it cost him a pound fine. 
The judge is a negro, and he gives it 
to the whites a little extra when a case 
comes up to him." 

We end dinner with coffee and 
cashew nuts, and go out to watch the 
engineer beat the cocoa-planter at 
billiards on a huge English table in 
the palm room. At midnight the party 
breaks up, and as the automobile whirls 
back to the hotel, among the wonder- 
fully bright constellations can be seen 
the Southern Cross, upright high above 
the horizon. 

A fortnight's stay in Port of Spain is 
well worth the time. You are put up at 
the Union Club in Marine Square, where 
the business men gather for breakfast, 
and at the Queen's Park Club, which 
declares itself to be " sporting and 
social." You explore the recesses of the 
negro quarter. You visit the nurseries 

79 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

where seeds and shoots from all over 
the world are experimented with, to test 
their adaptability to Trinidad, and where 
indigenous coffee plants, balata gum, 
cocoa, bananas, oranges, everything that 
may be useful to the Colony, is being 
grafted and developed. You can order 
khaki or white linen suits made at an 
English tailors for some such ridiculous 
price as five dollars, and buy American 
watches and sewing-machines at about a 
quarter less than in the States. 

Your letters open the doors to a quaint 
world of English officials sent out from 
the old country to this London-governed 
Crown Colony. You meet Venezuelan 
exiles, some long-established, like the 
Siegerts, some only recently fled from 
across the Gulf, with their property 
confiscated and bitterness in their hearts. 
You find American managers of the 
asphalt and petroleum companies ; re- 
tired Corsican traders grown rich on 
80 




QUEEN'S PARK 




INDIGENOUS CRICKET 



Trinidad 

the balata export ; English and Scotch 
merchants and old French families dating 
from the time of the negro insurrection 
in Haiti. A veritable kaleidoscope of 
tints and shades are the assemblages at 
the Government Palace, where the wives 
of negro magistrates rub elbows with 
Colonial planters and English officials. 

To see the rest of the island, a motor 
trip is the best method. Trinidad is 
only 50 miles square, and is crossed by 
splendid roads. The manager of one of 
the oil companies, Mr. David Jefferson, an 
American from Alabama, puts his car at 
our disposal. A day is selected, and as 
an early start is desirable, so as to ride 
as much as possible in the cool of the 
day, seven o'clock in the morning is set 
for the time of departure. The machine 
appears promptly with a smart-looking 
negro chauffeur at the wheel. Fixed on 
the front of the radiator is a bedraggled 
Teddy Bear. 

G 8l 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

"A queer conceit," you remark. 

"That isn't a fancy," is the answer; 
"wait until we hit the native settlement." 
A few moments later we are in the 
region of low mud huts and streets so 
crowded that the horn must be blown 
continuously. From every side run up 
piccaninnies, some clad in a shirt, some 
in a wisp of rag, some in a smile. 
With one accord they shriek for joy, 
dance up and down, point to each other, 
and a good half of their parents do the 
same. " Monkee ! monkee ! " they cry. 

"You see!" says Mr. Jefferson; "they 
don't pay any attention to the automobile, 
they are so interested in the Teddy 
Bear. I can run over a dozen assorted 
chickens, dogs, pigs, and ducks, and 
when I come back, instead of heaving 
rocks at me, they shout at the bear." 

We shoot on with the echo ringing in 
our ears, " Monkee I monkee ! " 

An East Indian settlement appears 
82 



Trinidad 

now, and the coolie children do exactly 
as the negro piccaninnies did, shouting 
while their elders stare fixedly at the 
Teddy. 

We pass a tall figure of a man with 
ample robes and a caste mark on his 
forehead who does not deign to notice 
us — a Hindu priest. Coolie women, 
their faces half covered with silken 
shawls and their arms laden with silver 
bangles, hammered out from the English 
shillings which represent the savings 
of the family, glide gracefully by. 
What a contrast are their lithe slender 
figures, in gracefully draped robes, to 
those of the negro women, in cheap 
ready-made skirts and bodices, who, 
shapelessly bundled together, waddle 
clumsily along! Some of the coolie 
girls are really beautiful, though they 
invariably spoil the effect by a nose-ring. 

A cart drawn by a span of zebu 
with half a dozen bare-legged coolies 

83 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

sitting on hard planks passes. Farther 
along, beside a small stream rest a yoke 
of water buffalo. Little nondescript dogs, 
looking like degenerate fox-terriers, run 
out and snap at the whirring wheels. 
Four coolies appear walking abreast 
and carrying a big magenta flag. They 
scatter to left and right as we pass. Their 
usually snowy white shirts are stained 
and streaked with purple, as if a tub of 
dye had fallen on them. 

"They throw those colours on each 
other at the feasts," explains Mr. Jefferson 
above the whir of the wheels. 

The suburbs of Port of Spain extend 
for six miles. Almost all the way along 
the road there are little adobe houses, 
sometimes those of negroes, sometimes 
those of coolies, for though these two 
races disdain each other they live side 
by side. 

Each has a comfortable feeling of 
superiority, the negro because he is free 
84 



Trinidad 

to loaf while the coolie is indentured for 
five years, the coolie because of his 
traditions of ancient civilization and the 
pride of caste, to which every Indian 
down to the lowest clings, even here on 
the other side of the world. 

A sugar-cane plantation is reached, 
extending for miles in every direction. 
A locomotive on a narrow-gauge track 
puffs near by, hidden amid the high 
cane. Farther on coolies with machetes 
in hand are cutting stalks, which others 
load into cars, piling them to a great 
height. Miles of cane-brake flank the 
beautifully smooth and well-kept roads. 

The ground becomes more hilly. 
Cocoa plantations begin, straight files of 
small cocoa-trees shaded by immortelles, 
with dark alleys between the rows. The 
ripening pods, green, yellow, red, and 
purple, sprout in queer fashion directly 
from the trunk or from thick branches. 

After a two-hour run San Fernando 

85 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

is reached, with its statue of the crucified 
Christ overlooking the market-place of the 
coolies. A half-dozen miles beyond this 
is the entrance to the Government's 
Forest Reserve. The trail into the forest 
is impassable, unfortunately, for the 
automobile. We start in on foot through 
a small cocoa plantation owned by a 
coolie who has served his time and pur- 
chased Crown land. 

Beyond it the forest begins. Nothing 
can describe the feeling of one's own 
insignificance which the monster trunks 
that flank the narrow trail inspire. 
One is an ant beneath these giants. The 
weirdly colossal forests which Gustave 
Dore drew to illustrate Chateaubriand's 
"Atala," with pygmy figures wandering 
beneath the overwhelming majesty of the 
virgin woods, are here a reality. Mora 
trees, 80 feet to 120 feet high, tower up 
on either hand. Cedars rise 60 feet to 
80 feet tall. Balata rubber trees shoot 
86 



Trinidad 

up ioo feet, with the scars of the rubber 
tappings on them. Here and there are 
specimens whose boles grow in the shape 
of narrow buttresses and cover at the 
bottom an area 40 feet square. From 
the tall hardwoods hang tenuous vines, 
dropping straight as a plummet. We 
toil through the heavy clay, around trunks 
and over logs, drenched with perspiration, 
oppressed by the dank heat. 

" Here are hardwoods that nobody ever 
heard of up North, which ought to be 
marketed," Jefferson remarks. 

" Disgracefully commercial," you tell 
him, and climb back into the automobile. 

Frequent villages of coolies and negroes 
lie along the way, and long stretches of 
cocoa plantation. Now and then we pass 
a neat stucco constabulary station. Amid 
the multitudes of natives an occasional 
white overseer is seen driving by in his 
buggy- As we get towards the Atlantic 
coast the road narrows and the jungle 

*7 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

takes the place of cultivated lands. 
Dense thickets 30 feet high, with occa- 
sional big trees lifting their heads above 
the other vegetation, close in on either 
hand. The ground is more and more 
hilly. At length, after a stretch of coco- 
nut palms, there appear the roofs of a 
straggly settlement of poor-looking houses, 
the village of Mayaro, in the south-east 
corner of the island. 

Twelve miles of drive along the beach 
will take us to the Guayaguayare oil- 
fields, where the production of petroleum 
has been recently started. We must leave 
the car, which cannot negotiate the heavy 
sands, but a good mule and buggy are 
loaned us for the trip. While waiting 
for low tide, we lunch upon tinned goods 
and biscuit bought from a Chinaman who 
keeps a general store. All around coco- 
nut trees are growing, the nuts hanging 
a few feet overhead. We ask for one to 
try, but not a man will budge. " They 
88 



Trinidad 

belong to George Grant," is the explana- 
tion. It is a commentary on the rigidity 
and the enforcement of the law here. 

At length, when close to ebb-tide, we 
start along a beach. Mile after mile of 
unfenced coco-nut plantations, the palms 
rooted in the barren sand, border the 
sea-shore. A few houses of negroes and 
one occupied by a white superintendent 
look out towards the Atlantic. Beautiful 
pink and purple Portuguese men-of-war 
lie on the beach. The dry ones burst 
with a loud pop when a wheel crushes 
over them. A negro boy walks along in 
the shoal water, throwing a net from time 
to time and bringing back the small 
bulge-eyed fishes which swim along the 
margin of the land to avoid the bigger 
fish in the deeper water. A solitary 
pelican skims the sea, making occasional 
dives into the breakers. 

Here along the shore, with the trade 
wind blowing in, it is cool even in mid- 
89 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

afternoon. But where the road cuts 
through the forest the heat is oppressive. 
We ford two shallow river-mouths with 
tangles of mangrove in the area where 
fresh water meets salt. The coco-nut 
groves give place to forested hills and the 
distorted and broken strata of clay and 
sand show up on the cliffs along the sea. 

At length appears a row of houses set 
up on stilts 15 feet in the air, the quarters 
of the white workmen of the oil company. 
The local manager comes down to meet 
us, and we climb the stairs and enter the 
mosquito - proof portico, where pipes, 
magazines, and great easy-chairs show 
that when off duty certain elemental 
comforts are not lacking. 

Dinner is due as we arrive, and after 
a wash we sit down to the manager's 
mess. After dinner some bottled speci- 
mens of the deadly coral snake found on 
the works are proudly exhibited. We 
dip into some ancient " Strand Magazines" 
90 



Trinidad 

on the veranda and smoke our pipes and 
talk looking out upon the quiet ocean. 

In the morning we take a handcar 
propelled by four negroes and go up the 
narrow-gauge track to the wells. Row 
after row of spare bits and casing-ele- 
vators lie neatly ranged in the store-room. 
Farther on are the derricks with their 
boilers ioo feet distant, so that in case 
of a gusher the oil will not take fire. A 
6o-foot stream of oil shot up from one 
of the wells near by recently, and most 
of the oil was lost at sea before the 
flow could be stopped. 

Within the derrick-shed an engine 
turns a 9-foot bull-wheel, driving up and 
down a walking beam like that on a 
Mississippi steamer. The drill-hole, lined 
with pipe 8 inches in diameter, goes down 
1,800 feet through the layers (clay and 
sandstone) of the oil - bearing anticline. 
At the bottom of the well, attached to the 
walking beam by a 2-inch hemp cable 

91 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

works the drilling bit, shaped like a fish's 
tail. Above it is the jar or link which 
brings the bit up with a jerk when the 
beam is being raised. This " string of 
tools " churns down through rock and 
clay into the oil sands. Some hundreds 
of feet away a well fully dug is being 
pumped for oil. Still farther off another 
is having the water and the sand, pul- 
verized by the bit, baled out so that 
drilling can recommence. 

We take a trip on foot to a place close 
at hand where natural gas rises from the 
ground and can be lit by a match. 
Farther on is a little brook running a 
driblet of black oil instead of water from 
some spring in the hill-side. In places 
black ledges of pitch, soft in the hot 
sun, give under the feet. A small mud 
volcano is near by. 

The forest with its great trees, screeching 
parakeets and buzzing insects, is all about. 

The return trip along the sands brings 
92 



Trinidad 

us back to Mayaro at about noon, after 
long stretches of wading, for the tide 
nearly catches us under the cliffs. A 
long run in the automobile brings us 
to the celebrated Asphalt Lake. The 
straggling village at its edge is an extra- 
ordinary spectacle. Not a house but is 
twisted out of plumb. The land is the 
source of never-ending litigation, because 
the slowly shifting currents of the pitch 
bottom in a few years move yards and 
gardens on to other men's property, dis- 
tort boundaries into every possible shape, 
carry landmarks a hundred yards away. 
Some natives are doing a little desultory 
digging here before the territory of the 
Asphalt Company begins. A green bam- 
boo across the road marks its boundary. 
There shiftlessness ends and system 
begins. Well-built mosquito-proof bar- 
racks for the workmen, with shower-baths 
and clothes-racks, grace the bare hill. 
A long pier extends far out to sea and 

93 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the houses of the officers are built over 
piles alongside, swept by every breeze. 
On a cable-way to the ship waiting off 
the pier-end goes a slow line of big steel 
buckets, and negroes stand sending the 
asphalt contents down a chute into the hold. 

The manager of the lake, Mr. Procter, 
clad in khaki and riding gaiters, welcomes 
us with strange drinks and Cuban cigars 
on his swaying house above the waters 
of the Gulf of Paria. We lunch with him 
and his engineers. After a chat we follow 
back the half-mile-long cable- way to the lake. 

The abomination of desolation is this 
lake. In spots a palm killed by the 
asphalt droops disconsolately. A few 
tufts of grass have secured a footing in 
places. But for the rest it is a solid mass 
of black, dull, evil-smelling pitch, with 
pools of water here and there in which 
swim little parboiled fishes. Against any 
of the hot spots in the world, bar none, 
this can be backed. The tropic sun beats 

94 



Trinidad 

down ; the black asphalt reflects it back 
like the entrance of a furnace. One s feet 
are unbearably hot through the heavy 
leather and one sinks if he stands still 
for a moment. A hundred and fifty 
degrees have been recorded on the lake. 

A wicked-looking black snake six feet 
long glides into the bushes near the 
margin of the lake. It has been sunning 
itself on the asphalt. No wonder the 
serpents are supposed to be creatures of the 
devil. As for ourself, fifteen minutes' 
stay takes away every bit of vitality we can 
summon. Not enough interest is left in 
life to inquire what the negroes hewing 
with mattocks at the asphalt receive in 
wages. They earn the pay, whatever it is. 
There is no mechanical way yet discovered 
by which the stuff can be dug. Hour after 
hour these negroes hack out, with a few 
blows of the mattock, the brittle pitch, 
which flakes away in pieces a foot square. 
They lift the burden to their heads and 

95 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

dump it into the steel buckets, which start 
their slow way to the ship. The holes fill 
up in a few days with new pitch. 

" The lake is ninety to one hundred 
acres in extent now," says Mr. Procter, 
" but it is gradually shrinking with the 
removal of such large quantities. A good 
percentage of the asphalt pavement in the 
world comes from this one lake and its geo- 
logical complement in Venezuela. We 
leased it under a forty-seven year contract 
with the Trinidad Government, to which 
nearly $250,000 a year has been paid in 
royalties. Such mining is the nearest 
thing there is to digging money out of 
the ground." 

" Yes, but your Asphalt Trust is wel- 
come to it," says Mr. Jefferson. " If I had 
a thousand a day to dig pitch I would not 
take it." 

We drink all the iced tea in the Thermos 
bottle, when we get back to the machine, 
and turn it loose for Port of Spain. 
96 



Ill 

THE SERPENT'S MOUTH 

WOUR proposed trip across the Gulf, up 
-*■ the Orinoco and into the interior of 
Venezuela along the path of the Seekers 
for El Dorado evokes a most alarming 
chaos of varying advice. 

Major Bridges, of the Constabulary, who 
has never been out of Trinidad and has a 
truly Saxon prejudice against everything 
Latin and lawless, roundly declares that 
Venezuela is a " no man's land" where 
murder is commoner than soap and water. 
" I have never been in the vile country, but 
I heard that for shooting a man over there 
the judge fines the guilty party only forty 
dollars." 

Baron Caratoni, who has a rubber con- 
h 97 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

cession in Venezuela which he wants to 
sell, protests volubly. "No, no, they don't 
shoot strangers — they only shoot each 
other. It is perfectly safe for a stranger." 

Jefferson, of the oil fields, tells that the 
Sunday previous seven men employed at 
the Pitch Lake had gone over to Venezuela 
in a sail-boat. They had been all thrown 
into prison as revolutionaries and had not 
yet been released. " They will keep you in 
jail for months and you will get the yellow 
fever," he warns. 

Carrera, exiled in the Castro regime, 
now the possessor of a timber concession 
upon the Caroni granted by the new 
Government, relates how in the old days 
he was incarcerated for carrying an entirely 
innocent letter which a friend had given 
him to post. He was arrested on the 
pretence that carrying letters was a 
Government function and letters were 
"contraband." 

" They used to do that in the old times, 
98 



The Serpent's Mouth 

but not now under President Gomez. No 
one has any trouble now," the exile avers. 

" Beastly country, just the same," insists 
Robertson, the merchant. " They have 
an extra customs taxjof 30 per cent, on 
all goods which come from Trinidad. 
Castro put it on and Gomez does not take 
it off." 

"You can never get your guns in, any- 
way," cautions the cocoa-grower. "The 
Minister of the Interior is the only man 
who has the right to issue permits for 
firearms, and he always refuses to do so. 
They are so afraid of revolutions." 

Evidently Venezuela is an interesting 
country. Also, all this advice is worth 
considering. You sit back and ponder as 
the critics one and all leave the hotel. 
Mr. Jefferson turns as he goes: "Over 
there is a man who can tell you enough 
about the Orinoco. He is just back from 
Ciudad Bolivar." 

Talking with a couple of dusky-hued 

99 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Spanish belles on the portico of the 
Queen's Park Hotel sits a linen-clad figure 
topped by a sweeping white sombrero. 

" Introduce me," you suggest. For 
some reason Jefferson hesitates. He is 
silent a long, dubious minute. Then he 
laughs lightly and shrugs his shoulders. 
" If you insist," he says, and walks across. 

"Mr. Fitzgerald!" The latter turns 
around carelessly. 

"Hullo, Jeff! How's the boy?" he snaps 
with a regular Yankee twang. The intro- 
duction follows. A few general remarks 
are interchanged, then we settle to our 
theme. His roving grey eyes meet yours. 

"Venezuela! sure I can tell you about 
Venezuela ! " He signals a waiter with 
his rattan cane and gives a repeat order. 

After the chaos of contrary advice from 
insular Englishmen and Venezuelan pro- 
moters anxious to sell rubber plantations, 
it is like the turning on of a searchlight 
to meet this type of fellow-countryman, 
ioo 



The Serpent's Mouth 

You fire in some specific and direct 
questions. 

" Do people shoot each other habitually 
over there ?" 

"Only when they get excited." 

This seems perfectly satisfactory. 

" How about the men that went across 
from New Brighton and got caught by 
the gunboat ? " 

" Why, sure, they got pinched. They 
didn't take out any papers or pass the 
custom-house. You'll be jugged any- 
where if you enter that way. Get the 
permit and go in through the custom- 
house — then it is like sliding off a log." 

"Well, how about confiscating your 
rifles, and 30 per cent, taxes and such 
things?" 

"Why, if you are on the level there is 
nothing to it. But every revolution 
Venezuela ever had started in Trinidad, 
and half the merchants here have divvied 
up with the smugglers. That old fox 

101 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Castro figured out that an extra 30 
per cent, duty would square things, 
and his dope was about right. Gomez, 
the new President, seems to think so, 
anyway." 

"Then there is no trouble about going 
up the Orinoco and into the interior?" 

"Never a bit," says Fitzgerald. "The 
Venezuelans are the real goods — dead 
game sports and no limit." 

"That settles it," you remark. "I am 
going to Ciudad Bolivar to-morrow on 
the 'Delta.'" 

Fitzgerald thinks a moment and sizes 
you up with a sidelong glance. " Say, 
I'm off for there myself to-morrow on my 
launch ; come along with me." 

You sweep a scrutinizing glance over 
him in turn ; thinking a moment, too, you 
recall Jefferson's shrug wherein he shook 
off all responsibility. Then you accept. 

" Done," and on it you shake. 

You agree to dine together at the hotel 
102 



The Serpent's Mouth 

that evening and talk over ways and 
means. Meanwhile you start out alone 
to assemble your personal outfit. The 
Spanish Baron is the first man you meet. 
" All is decided," you say gleefully. 

"Ah, so monsieur is going on the 
' Delta'?" 

" But no, upon the launch of Monsieur 
Fitzgerald ! " 

The Baron's face goes pale. " That 
launch ! Why, it is only of two tons ; 
you do not know what it is to cross 
the Straits, the Serpent's Mouth — it is 
to die." 

The Venezuelan exile, Carrera, comes 
up the hotel steps. 

" He is going up the Orinoco on Fitz- 
gerald's little launch," appeals the Baron. 
" C'est se suicider — let him ask Vicetella, 
of the Navigation Company." 

Carrera tactfully shrugs his shoulders 
and says nothing. But a moment later 
he draws you to one side. 

103 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" Fitzgerald you don't know, but he is 
mixed up in all sorts of things. A 
filibuster, partner of Jack Boynton. 
It was he ran in the guns for Matas's 
revolution, packed in barrels of lard." 

On the streets you meet Robertson, 
the British merchant. " Seriously, it is 
very, very dangerous passing the Serpent's 
Mouth, and Fitzgerald is absolutely reck- 
less. He's the only man in all Trinidad 
mad enough to go on a trip like that." 

Scott, the young American field super- 
intendent of the oilfields company, three 
years out of Princeton, who has been 
listening to the divers woes and alarms, 
grins at the last. " I wish I were going 
too." 

We meet Fitzgerald at dinner and start 
a list of supplies. It begins with flour 
and goes on down through such stock 
provisions as condensed milk, baked 
beans, and canned stuff, ad lib. The 
tropic specialities Fitzgerald adds : a big 
104 



The Serpent's Mouth 

mosquito bar for the whole back of the 
boat, a basket of limes, cashew nuts, and 
a box of oranges. Now come a series 
which elicit remarks. 

" Half a dozen hams." 

" Isn't that rather a mouthful for a 
fortnight's trip?" you ask. 

"Oh, they are a present for El Presi- 
dente, the Governor of the State of 
Bolivar." 

11 Put down one case of champagne." 

" Are you going to swim up an Orinoco 
of fizz, or do you nourish the crew on 
champagne ? " asks Scott. 

"Oh no. It goes as presents to the 
officials of the Aduana — the Custom 
House, you know. Put down a ten-pound 
box of chocolates — for the wives of the 
officials of the Aduana. Add a case of 
beer." 

"Who is this for — us?" you inquire. 

" No, for the Jefes Civiles in the little 
towns — the mayors, you know. Put 

105 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

down five boxes of Havana cigars for 
the Commandantes." 

" You have forgotten the wives of the 
Commandantes and the Jefes," suggests 
Scott. 

" Good ! I am glad you reminded me," 
says Fitzgerald. "Add candy in jars for 
them. Now put down two dozen bottles 
of rum for the minorlCustom House people 
and the boatmen ; they can't get along 
without rum." 

This completes the bill, and you put 
the list away. Fitzgerald gives a most 
improper wink and sighs luxuriously, for 
dinner has been completed and we are 
sitting on the hotel piazza sipping bad 
coffee and smoking good cigars. Across 
the road are the telephone lines of the city. 

" Did any one ever tell you how the 
first telephone in Trinidad came to be 
put up?" asks Fitzgerald meditatively. 

You have not heard, and neither has 
Scott. 
1 06 



The Serpent's Mouth 

" A friend of mine — whom I will not 
name— managed it," he goes on medita- 
tively. "It was this way: A certain 
President of one of the South American 
Republics wanted a police telephone put in 
at his capitol. The price to be paid was 
twenty-five thousand dollars. The tele- 
phone was to cost about eight thousand, 
and five people were to split up the 
balance. We got a first payment of six 
thousand dollars, all in silver, from the 
National Treasury, and carried it away 
in a cart. The President of course got 
his rake-off in a separate bag, which we 
sent around first. 

" Then the four others sat down, two 
of them Cabinet Ministers, to slice up 
their melon. It was a sight to see the 
Minister of Frumento, who was fat, puff- 
ing and perspiring in his shirtsleeves 
that night making piles of the pesos. 

" But that is all the money we — that 
is, my friend — got. The President was 

107 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

killed and a new President came in. Not 
long after, his secretary called on my friend. 

"'Look/ he said. 'You have not built 
the telephones for which you have con- 
tracted.' He thought we would give up. 
But my friend, who had ordered the tele- 
phones on credit, figured out that there 
were pickings on what was left, so he 
said : ' I will carry out the contract ; give 
me the thirteen thousand dollars re- 
maining.' 

" The President's secretary reversed his 
engines fast, for the Government had no 
money left. ' No, no ! Not that ! ' He 
thought awhile, then said : ' As a great 
favour to you I will get the contract can- 
celled for nothing.' My friend let it go. 
There was not enough left in the deal for 
the new President. So the contract was 
cancelled and the telephones were brought 
over and put up here in Trinidad." 

Methuselah comes to tell Scott that 
one of his foremen has called him up 
108 



The Serpent's Mouth 

from San Fernando to ask about a drilling 
bit that is being rethreaded in the Govern- 
ment iron foundry here in Port of Spain. 
He goes out to reply, and we muse 
upon the devious ways by which progress 
comes. 

" But that other city never got its 
police telegraph," Fitzgerald remarks. 

We go next day to the Venezuelan 
Consul, who has been appointed only three 
days. " They've bounced the Consuls 
four times in the last year," whispers Fitz- 
gerald. We sign many papers for clear- 
ance, and enrol at the Consulate as 
" captain and first officer respectively of 
the gasolene launch ' Geraldo,' 2\ tons 
burden, 24 feet long, crew of two, laden 
with ship's supplies." 

The inwardness of the proceeding is 
this : A passenger is forbidden by the 
most stringent possible law from landing 
in Venezuela at any spot where there is 
not a u puerto habiltado," or licensed port 

109 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

with a custom-house. There is not one 
of these puertos between the Orinoco 
mouth and Ciudad Bolivar, 400 miles 
up. A passenger for Pedernales, at 
one of the mouths of the river, is 
bound to go to Ciudad Bolivar without 
touching foot to ground, pass the customs, 
and then come back. To disobey means 
arrest, jail, fines, and endless trouble to 
the diplomatic representatives of which- 
soever foreign Government has to dig the 
culprit out. But the officer of a vessel 
is a bird of another colour. It is not 
only his pleasure but his duty to land 
and present his papers and his compli- 
ments to the Commandantes and other 
officials on the way up. And what Com- 
mandante is such a particularist in the 
law of Caracas as to prevent his amigos, 
once landed, from taking a stroll or getting 
a shot at some alligators ? Voyez vous ? 

Many prominent citizens of Venezuela 
are in the Consulate of Port of Spain, 
no 



The Serpent's Mouth 

Three or four have the onerous duty 
of putting a rubber stamp on the 
clearance papers, charging some six- 
teen dollars for their labours. Other 
patriots are on hand to hold converse 
with the Consul and smoke cigarettes, 
while the talk over the sizzling politics 
of the home country goes back and forth. 
General Desham, President of the State 
of Miranda, said to be the best revolver 
shot in Venezuela, is here. He has several 
mining concessions in his pocket. Car- 
rera, the rubber man, is here, and the 
Spanish Baron. The Consulate is like a 
club-house. 

Very courteous they all are, giving us 
letters to their friends up the river and 
offering cigarettes ad libitum. After an 
hour we break away and reach the 
launch. 

The wharf-boys have loaded the side 
of the Custom House dock with a moun- 
tain of supplies. It is a miracle how so 

in 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

much of it gets stored away in the little 
lockers. The beer and champagne bottles 
go aft, bereft of their straw covers, which 
are strewn about the water in front of 
the Custom House like fallen leaves in 
autumn. Flour, baking-powder, hams, 
cans of beans, potted meats, tins of 
biscuit — these and many more go into 
the side lockers and drawers. Engine- 
oil and carbide are tucked away forward. 
Your modest bag of clothes has to stand 
on deck behind the engine, the pneumatic 
mattress and the cartridge box along- 
side it. 

When at last the "Geraldo" is fully 
laden, with a mountain of cargo on the 
midships deck because it cannot be 
stowed, the launch looks seriously over- 
loaded. At that moment a big row-boat, 
pulled by two negroes, comes alongside. 
Its entire stern is laden with red wooden 
boxes containing ten-gallon gasolene 
tins — sixteen of them. To your horror 
112 



The Serpent's Mouth 

you find that Fitzgerald proposes to load 
these too into the "Geraldo." 

There is nothing for it, however. Fuel 
must be provided and gasolene must be 
carried. It is passed aboard while you 
stand aghast. The whole floor of the 
launch, save a small space beside the 
engines, is piled as high as the seats 
with gasolene tins and other goods. The 
Custom House authorities will not let 
gasolene be loaded even from the dock. 
The launch has become a very floating 
powder-magazine. 

With many misgivings, you climb in 
and perch on the cargo. The two boys 
that compose the crew let go the moorings 
and you are off. " Be careful in the 
Serpent's Mouth," calls Captain Hunt, of 
the Customs. He shakes his head and 
goes back into his office on the dock. 

We have started. Will we arrive? 
The two boys casually light up cigarettes 
as they sit on the forward pile of 
i 113 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

gasolene tins, but they throw them over- 
board in double-quick time on order of 
the first-officer. The frightfully over- 
loaded boat, flat-bottomed, of 9-inch 
draught, ploughs through the smooth 
water in the lee of the land without too 
much labour. But a half mile out the 
waves are choppy. The exhaust is partly 
submerged and the gases puff and snort 
in protest as the seas block their outlet. 
An explosive back-fire from time to time 
barks a sinister warning. 

You sit on the cushions and worry for 
a while. Usually a launch-owner, if he 
does not mind his own life, is careful of 
his property. It takes not much seaman- 
ship to tell you that to go a mile in a 
boat so loaded is a nice juicy risk, let 
alone crossing the Gulf of Paria and 
passing the reefs of the Serpent's Mouth. 
There doesn't seem, however, to be any 
practical way of backing out now. 

Fitzgerald appears himself to realize 
114 



The Serpent's Mouth 

for the first time what sort of trip it is 
he has so insouciantly proposed. He is 
a little nervous and voluble. You learn 
for the first time with a touch of dismay 
that this is a new launch and that his 
former trips up the Orinoco have been 
made in the 200-foot " Delta." 

"Is there a chart?" you ask. 

"Yes, yes; I have one," he says. 

But a lengthy search fails to produce 
it. It has gone overboard or been left, 
or is buried hopelessly in the inextricable 
mound of luggage. 

Now the engine stops, a mile from 
land, and we toss about in the trough 
of the waves. 

" Joe, come back and turn this fly- 
wheel," orders Fitzgerald. 

Joe, a boy of eighteen, jet black, 
shambles astern. He has forgotten to 
throw away a new cigarette he has been 
smoking on the sly, up forward, hidden 
by the gasolene tins. In a sulky, half- 

"5 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

hearted way, his second cigarette having 
gone the way of the first, Joe turns the 
flywheel. Not an explosion, not a buzz. 
He turns it again and again and then a 
few more times. Not a spark. 

" Something must be wrong," says Fitz- 
gerald. Nobody contradicts him. " I 
think it is the spark-plug," he adds. 
He unscrews the spark-plug. Nothing 
seems to be wrong there. Joe turns the 
wheel some more. 

" Charlie, you come and turn the 
wheel ! " shouts Fitzgerald. Charlie is 
about seventeen years old, a mixture of 
Chinese, negro and white in an unknown 
ratio. His arms are skinny, and he is 
far less strong than Joe, who is an able- 
bodied wharf-rat. Charlie's performance 
at the wheel is not a success. Joe has 
to try again. 

It takes three hours of this to run 
down the trouble. We are so loaded in 
the bow, by the gasolene tins, that the 
116 



The Serpent's Mouth 

tank is too low to feed into the engine. 
We move several tins aft, and just 
as the sun goes down we get started 
again. 

You stop worrying. Things are too 
bad to think about. You dig out a tin 
of sardines and some crackers, and, 
reclining on the luggage, make a scratch 
meal. Joe takes the helm and is told 
to steer for the Southern Cross. Fitz- 
gerald comes astern, joins in the crackers 
and sardines, and digs out some liquids 
as well. The sun goes down and the 
stars come out over the waste of waters. 
It is a wonderfully beautiful night and 
the sea is dead calm. The engine throbs 
away regularly : the troubles of the start 
seem to have been all smoothed away. 

Fitzgerald gets out a mouth-organ 
from somewhere and wheezes complac- 
ently a medley of Venezuelan and Ameri- 
can airs — " Gloria al Peublo," "The 
Swanee River," " La Paloma." He 

117 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

sings an ancient ditty about a girl who 
declares to her lover: — 



" My father was a Spanish merchant, 
And the day he sailed away, 
He bade that I should answer ' No, sir/ 
To whatever you should say." 

The resourceful lover promptly asks if 
she would refuse him if he offered his 
hand. She answers " No, sir," and they 
all live happy ever afterwards. 

Fitzgerald is entertaining. He doubt- 
less feels twinges from a conscience 
somewhat battered by ten years' knocking 
around South America, for he exerts 
himself to make you forget the troubles 
of starting and the overloaded powder- 
magazine on which you are reclining 
and smoking Jamaica " Tropicals." 
Helped out by a ball-bearing imagination 
and a few drinks, his memoirs become 
truly worth their cost. A filibuster, a 
captain in the United States Army, a 
118 



The Serpent's Mouth 

police chief in Peru, a lobbyist in Caracas, 
a circus proprietor in Ecuador, an official 
photographer in Panama, exhibitor of the 
first Edison phonographs along the west 
coast, which cleaned him up two hundred 
thousand in a year, a fugitive riding 
200 miles and holding up passers-by for 
fourteen horses in escaping from an out- 
raged Government in Chili, fashionable 
photographic artist of Ciudad Bolivar 
and the representative of large capitalists 
who are on the point of investing in rail- 
roads, rubber, timber, et ah> in Venezuela 
— this is our interesting host and superior 
officer, Fitzgerald, of the launch "Geraldo." 

We smoke for a while in silence. 

"Did you ever read Lord Byron's 
poetry?" he asks. 

You allow that you have a bowing 
acquaintance with Byron. 

" I think ' Don Juan ' is the greatest 
poem that was ever written." He pro- 
duces a volume evidently bound by a 

119 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Spaniard, since Byron is spelled " Vyron." 
Most Venezuelans pronounce the words 
beginning with v, such as "vaca," cow, 
as if the v were b — " baca." So the 
Spanish bookbinder assumed that Byron 
should be Vyron. Long sections of " Don 
Juan" regale you now, read beneath the 
swinging lantern. At last Fitzgerald 
shuts the book regretfully. 

" I used to write poems," he says mus- 
ingly. M Here is one which I wrote in 
Cuba : — 

"Roll on, roll on, ye wheels of steel, 
You bear us on to woe or weal, 
You bring the bitter and the sweet, 
The flowers and the sugar beet. 
Some are carried for commercial use, 
Yon sugar-mill will use the juice 
To start the smiles of your sweetheart 
And ease the sorrow when you part." 

11 Can't we make the last a little clearer?" 
you suggest. " Does the sugar-juice get 
made into sweets or rum ? It really isn't 
the thing to offer a young lady — rum." 
1 20 



The Serpent's Mouth 

" It is candy, of course," says Fitz- 
gerald indignantly. " Everybody will 
understand." 

The launch plugs away into the night, 
and at length you fall into an uneasy 
sleep on the cushions. Shortly before 
dawn you wake. There is a sound of 
voices. Joe is explaining something in 
an insolent drawl and Fitzgerald is 
swearing in an eminently capable manner. 
Land is nowhere to be seen. Fitzgerald 
turns indignantly to you. " This damn 
fool boy has steered us into the middle 
of the Gulf of Paria instead of going 
south along the coast. We ought to be 
at Cedros Point now, and Heaven knows 
where we are." 

We set a course due west to get into 
touch with Trinidad again. The ship's 
officers judge it best to take the wheel 
personally this time. About nine o'clock 
land is sighted. On going closer in, the 
long pier of the Asphalt Company and 

121 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

their boats at anchor are seen. We are 
only to San Fernando, half-way down the 
island, instead of being at the extreme 
south-west point, which we had expected 
to strike in the early morning so as to 
cross the Serpent's Mouth at flood-tide, 
when the ocean pushes back the Orinoco 
current and carries one into the river mouth. 

This is exasperating, but there is 
nothing for it but to eat more biscuits 
and sardines and steer south again. We 
give the wheel to Charlie, watching him 
like hawks, however, and go back to the 
cushions in the stern. 

" I never told you how I joined the 
U.S. Army, did I ? " inquires Fitzgerald. 

"You did not." 

"Well, it was this way. When the 
Spanish War broke out I was putting 
up a telephone line in Barbados. Just 
as soon as I heard that the Americans 
had occupied Porto Rico I dropped every- 
thing and jumped on board a sailing- 
122 



The Serpent's Mouth 

vessel. When we got to Porto Rico a 
young lieutenant would not let me land 
on account of the blockade. I said, ' Take 
this note to the General,' and wrote on 
a slip of paper, ■ An American who speaks 
Spanish as good as he does English isn't 
allowed to land.' In an hour they had 
me on shore and made me interpreter for 
the General. Now, you know, I am an 
engineer." This you are quite prepared 
to believe. "And it was not long before 
they put me in charge of the port works, 
to handle all the workmen that loaded 
and unloaded. The General said he 
wanted me regular, so they gave me a 
captain's commission in the 69th New 
York Volunteers. I liked the job. Every- 
thing was mixed up, and I was drawing 
two salaries — one from the United States 
as captain, and one from the Provisional 
Government of the island. I had a 
regular contract for serving as Port 
Engineer, and I held the men to their 

123 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

work. One of my superiors had tried to 
get me to sign a contract which was half 
graft, and I blocked it and got him fired. 
I am for graft every time here in South 
America when you're after something, but 
it ain't right when you're in our service. 

" Then a new General came, and he 
began sniffing around. I had a trucking 
business on the side, and he asked about 
this business. ' Can't a man invest his 
money as he likes?' I said. Soon he v 
got fussy about my salaries, and tried to 
stop one of them. I got pretty sore at 
this. I had a contract for a year, and I 
made him come across. Then I resigned, 
and all the men went on strike because 
they liked me. 

"In three days he was around begging 
me to come back. In time I relented and 
said I would straighten out his strike 
for him, so I went down with a couple 
of kegs of beer and gave the dockers a 
talk. I told them that the new man was 
124 





; .: ■ J 






1 


'hJ 








■'-- ..ijaaHJI 


1 J 




.*•* 








The Serpent's Mouth 

a better fellow than he seemed, and they 
must do right by him. I told them I 
was tired of the job and could make 
more money. The old General offered 
me a commission in the Regulars if I 
would go to the Philippines with him. 
But a tornado had struck Porto Rico, and 
there was a lot of contract work to be 
done on the island, so I resigned ; I wish 
sometimes I had stayed in the service." 
Being a little downcast, he gets out the 
mouth-organ again. 

In due time we are off Cedros Point, 
that long, narrow neck of land which 
pointed to the Conquistadores the way to 
the Orinoco and El Dorado. Venezuela 
is not in sight ; we pass the point and 
enter the Serpent's Mouth. The tide-race 
of which Columbus wrote to the King of 
Spain is marked only by ripples. 

The swell of the sea in long, smooth 
waves over which we glide presently grips 
the " Geraldo." The wind is astern, and 

125 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

we steer dead south. All of a sudden the 
boat turns completely around and faces 
Trinidad. Joe is at the wheel. 

"What are you doing there?" howls 
Fitzgerald. " Drop the wheel ! " He takes 
it himself. We have not gone a hundred 
yards before the boat does the same thing 
again. The tiller is helpless. Some 
whirlpool has swung the boat about 
bodily, though only a little swirl on the 
surface shows the whirlpool's location. No 
harm done, but it jerks one's nerves a little. 

The wind freshens measurably. White 
caps are on the waves. Gulls fly by, 
shrieking hoarsely, or poise alongside. 
The wind is still astern. 

Up ahead now looms a solitary rock, 
the Sentinel — " El Soldado." Sharp and 
menacing it stands. We steer to seaward 
of it, as we are making for one of the 
eastern outlets of the river and the wind 
is favouring us. 

But is the wind favouring us ? It has 
126 



The Serpent's Mouth 

changed, and is blowing every moment 
more heavily in towards Soldado from the 
sea on our beam. The tide is going the 
same way — always towards Soldado. We 
have passed this to starboard now, and 
can see a line of breakers to leeward 
where a mile-long row of jagged rocks 
runs shorew T ard. 

" It is lucky that blighted engine has 
not balked again," you remark. " We 
would be on the rocks in ten minutes if 
it did." Hardly are the words spoken 
before the engine gives a couple of gasps, 
starts convulsively again, gives a last dull 
explosion, and — stops. 

One does a lot of quick thinking at 
such a time. If the boat goes to pieces 
on those reefs to leeward, can we swim 
athwart the current to Soldado, or will 
we be swept past it and have to 
swim the six miles to Venezuela? Can 
we climb Soldado's steep sides if we 
do reach it? Will we be picked off en 

127 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

route by a shark ? — the water is alive 
with them. Will we have to wait a 
fortnight without water for a boat to take 
us off if we do get to the rock ? Fitz- 
gerald fiddles with his engine. A friend 
has given you a pneumatic mattress. This 
will make a good life-preserver if you have 
to swim to Venezuela. You blow it up, 
put it in the stern, and look at the rocks. 
We are a bare hundred yards from 
the breakers ! We had not figured on 
the rapidity of the tide — six miles an 
hour it runs here. You jump to the 
anchor and heave it over. The line 
runs through your fingers so fast that 
you cannot fasten it to a cleat. In the 
last six feet of line you catch it braced 
around the tiller and make it fast. But 
the anchor can barely slow down the 
speed of drifting. You get the mattress 
ready and stand oar in hand to push 
past between the reefs if it is possible. 

Joe and Charlie watch stupidly at the 
128 



The Serpent's Mouth 

bow. Everything has happened so 
quickly that their low-geared thinking 
apparatus has not had time to work. 
Fitzgerald stands grimly by his engine. 
Not a word is said. Then ten feet away 
appears a wave-lashed rock in advance 
of the partly submerged reefs. The 
launch has drifted to the northward, and 
this is a spur higher than the rest 
which you had not seen. It is right at 
hand. "This ends it," you think, stand- 
ing on the stern, mattress in hand. The 
main emotion you have is of utter 
disgust at the whole proceeding. 

The current boils around the end of 
the rock. But to your paralysed aston- 
ishment, instead of crashing into it the 
boat is swirled around its point. The 
anchor-rope has caught on some provi- 
dential point and we swing into the slack 
back-water behind — safe for a moment. 
You look stupidly at the rock, astounded 
at not being battered against it. Fitz- 
k 129 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

gerald shows real clean grit and presence 
of mind. He gives his engine a turn, 
and in this smooth water it makes two 
expiring kicks and stops. But these 
two are enough to bring us to the lee side 
of the spur. We grapple it with pike 
poles. Joe is pushed ashore with the end 
of the anchor-rope and a big fish line, 
doubled, is heaved over and made fast 
to a jagged point of rock. We are safe. 

The two boys stare stupidly back at 
the row of reefs. You look to the 
lashings. Fitzgerald takes a deep breath, 
glances around, and then makes for the 
locker. He gets out a bottle of the 
champagne, sacred to official entertain- 
ment, and as the launch heaves giddily 
with the swell, in the lee of the rock all 
hands take a drink. 

After a council of war it seems best to 

stay here until the tide changes or the 

wind dies down. The engine is doctored 

up until it is apparently in perfect order. 

130 



The Serpent's Mouth 

The boys, with oars and pike poles, hold 
the boat from battering against the spur. 
We officers bathe in pools on the rock, 
not venturing into the sea alongside be- 
cause the sharks are reputed to like white 
meat. Around the line of reefs the peli- 
cans and gulls are fishing. 

At about four o'clock we cast off from 
the rock that gave us shelter. We make 
for the main channel towards Trinidad 
to avoid the line of reefs. The tide still 
flows westward, but we figure that it will 
be ebb shortly, and we must make land 
by nightfall. Soldado is on our lee now. 
We steer so as to get from in front of 
it as fast and as straight as possible. 
The engine stops again ! 

The boys take the oars and try to pull 
us out of the danger zone. But the heavy 
boat makes no way. Down every moment, 
closer to Soldado we go. The multitudes 
of gulls and water-birds that rest on it 
take alarm and fly out till the air is dark 

131 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

with them. Two hundred yards from the 
crag the engine is started once more. You 
grasp the tiller, look back so as to take the 
shortest line past Soldado — and the launch 
wears clear of it a hundred yards away. 

The reefs are all to windward now, 
the Venezuelan coast ahead. The wind 
is right to make the Pedernales or the 
Vagre mouth. 

As the boat heads inland the water 
gets a lighter and lighter brown. It is 
evidently shoaling. Sandbanks and a 
nest of submerged rocks lying here, is 
your memory of the chart. Joe hastily 
heads out to sea and for a spell we 
go parallel to the coast. The waves 
strike our quarter — huge white-capped 
mountains of water. If one of them hits 
the boat right and fills it, we — swim. 

This situation is intolerable. We may 

be swamped any moment. To stay out 

six miles from land in this weather is 

as risky as the hazard of the rocks. 

132 



The Serpent's Mouth 

" We've got to get in," you say at last, 
and take the helm. Straight for the sup- 
posed location of the Pedernales passage, 
with the wind nearly astern, you steer, 
taking the chance of reef and shoal, 
lifted now high on the crests of great 
following waves, the boat leaping for- 
ward, buried now deep in their trough. 

Joe is sent to heave the lead from 
time to time. He has picked up this 
knack and does his job fairly well. 
Heave : " Five fathoms, sir." Heave : 
" Four fathoms, sir." Heave : " Three 
and a half, sir." 

We are down to two and a half 
fathoms, the water is yellow, a rock 
spouts to port, the sweep of the waves 
hurls us up and down like a cork, but 
we keep straight on. The coast of 
Venezuela gets more and more distinct — 
a long green wall of mangrove trees. 
Ahead is a break in their green expanse 
for which we are steering. The sun is 

133 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

nearly down. We get almost to the 
break in the trees — we see the smooth 
water beyond them. 

Right at the edge where sea meets 
river, the water is churned into a tempest 
of short, sharp waves. We sweep into 
them and are shaken like a rat in a 
terriers mouth for a hundred yards. Then, 
just as the sun goes down, we glide behind 
the trees into the peace of the Orinoco. 

For half an hour we ascend the river 
between the silent forests. Then sud- 
denly the rudder-wire snaps, worn 
through. We cannot use the wheel, so 
you go aft and steer by pushing the 
tiller with your feet. Lucky this mishap 
also did not befall us an hour earlier ! 
The night falls with its usual rapidity in 
the tropics. We see a glimmering light 
ashore, some dimly outlined machinery. 
We make for it and tie up to the bank. 

"We have thrown dice with the Devil 
and won out," says Fitzgerald. 
i34 



IV 

UP THE ORINOCO 

A SHADOWY figure appears above 
^* > us. " Who's there ? " a voice calls. 
We stumble up the bank and onto a 
crumbling concrete platform with a rusted 
iron framework built above it and scraps 
of broken machinery underfoot. Into 
the uncertain light of the lantern comes 
a well-built and almost white mulatto, 
clad in a ragged shirt, trousers, and a 
broad-brimmed straw hat. He reaches 
out to shake our hands. 

" You Trinidad men ? " he asks ; ■ ' I am 
Englishman, too." 

A big negro and a little Venezuelan 
mestizo appear from the darkness. They 
talk together in Spanish. 

i35 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

The boys work stolidly at the pumps, 
for we have shipped much water. Dead 
tired, you sit on the bank waiting for 
this necessary task to finish. A half- 
dozen mosquitoes appear and you brush 
them away. But now it is a score that are 
assailing you, every moment more. You 
feel the stings in a dozen places at once. 
The swarm is around you like a cloud. 

The natives, bitten themselves but not 
so badly, do not at first notice our 
martyrdom. The Trinidad boy perceives 
it first. He grins broadly. 

" Mosquito very bad one here," he 
says. " I making fire for you." He 
scrapes together an armful of dried grass 
and lights it in the lee of an engine 
which is falling to pieces from rust. 
Standing full in the smoke the mos- 
quitoes are not so bad. We ask him 
how he bears them. 

" I must, I watchman here. They 
being very bad, but I used to them." 
136 



Up the Orinoco 

"What is your name?" 

" Tom." 

For a while, with streaming eyes, we 
stand in the smudge. Tom is lost in 
thought. 

"Have you gun?" he presently asks. 

We say that we have. 

" Will you shoot me tiger that come 
into building nights ? " 

We get back to the boats and dig 
out our rifles and an electric flash-lamp. 
Machete in one hand and flash-lamp in 
the other, Tom guides the way through 
high grass. Old boilers, engines, lathes, 
dump cars, all rusted and overgrown 
with vines, litter the ground. A hundred 
yards from the bank stands the skeleton 
of a steel building. 

"There I sleep," says Tom, pointing to 
a shelf high up on the rafters. " At night 
tiger come under." 

We go for a quarter of a mile up a 
ramshackle narrow - gauge track, over 

*37 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

swampy ground. Stiflingly hot is the 
night, and the sweat streams down us. 
We reach at length a second building. 

" Here tiger walk," and Tom points 
to some tracks on the ground. We flash 
the light around but see no jaguar. 

The mosquitoes are worse every in- 
stant. On each exposed bit of skin 
light the insect pests. They bite through 
the khaki. Tom's shirt is grey with them. 
No slapping with hand or handkerchief 
can keep them away. In a hundred 
spots their poisoned needles pierce you. 
The swarm blinds you. You breathe 
them in by mouth and by nose. Never 
for an instant is there peace. You are 
choked, tortured, maddened. You have 
to grip yourself as if for a supreme 
struggle to keep from a shrieking stam- 
pede. 

Almost on a run we hasten back to the 
first building and start a smudge, and 
as the dense black cloud of smoke rolls 
138 



Up the Orinoco 

up around you and the bites stop it is 
like a reprieve from hell. 

" Tiger come here later," says Tom, 
and rolls a big gear-wheel into the smoke 
for you to sit on. " I cook dinner." 

Into a tin goes a most uninviting and 
scraggy piece of meat, then plantains and 
onions, sliced with the machete. This 
mixture is boiled over the fire. In an- 
other tin, black coffee is brewed. Fitz- 
gerald goes back to the boat ; he will 
have none of it. You do not want to 
hurt Tom's feelings, for he has been as 
courteous as a grandee, and the tiger is, 
he asserts, due around. So you try his 
soup and some of the coffee with a piece 
of cassava bread. The hot coffee is not 
so very bad. The cassava bread looks like 
a flat bath sponge and tastes as it looks. 

The fire dies down. The mosquitoes 
come back in swarms, the jaguar does not 
come. At last you too retreat to the 
boat. Fitzgerald is wideawake, fighting 

i39 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

mosquitoes. Rabelais would blush at his 
language. 

You crawl beneath the mosquito bar, 
dead tired, and fall asleep despite the 
bites. It is not for long, however ; in 
three or four hours you wake. The net 
is full of the pests, who have either found 
the meshes passable or have located an 
entrance underneath. Your hands and 
even your body, covered by the thick 
khaki cloth, are raw with their stings. 
Only the utter exhaustion of the last two 
days enabled you to sleep at all. Fitz- 
gerald is already up and seated by a 
smudge. Haggard in the grey of [the 
morning, with bleeding face and hands, 
he looks as one newly carried from the 
torture-chamber. 

At last the sun comes out over the 
green forest, and the mosquitoes no longer 
besiege us. We are on the border of a 
wide pitch deposit covering several acres. 
Evidently extensive works to dig and 
140 



Up the Orinoco 

remove this were started, a great plant- 
equipment bought, and then the whole 
thing abandoned. It is a battlefield of 
industrial defeat. Only Tom is left to 
watch for a shilling a day the shattered 
machinery. 

He strips and dives into the water 
from the concrete landing-stage. " Not 
shark here," he calls. We all bathe and 
change our clothes. The world begins 
to look better. A pair of parrots fly 
from the woods behind with their loud 
shrieks. Far overhead goes a flock of 
scarlet ibises. Gulls and divers skim by. 
An egret, snowy-white against the green 
mangroves, perches on the opposite river- 
bank. 

We clean up ship and repack, getting 
in somewhat better shape. By eight 
o'clock we are ready, and after leaving 
some eatables and drinkables as a present 
for Tom and his friends, we start on 
our belated way. 

141 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Pedernales is about a mile off. We 
soon sight its straggly row of about 
twenty low-thatched adobe houses, with 
a few dugout canoes moored to stakes 
in front, and begin to steer shoreward. 
We land on a pile of stones and 
scramble up the bank. The whole 
population is on hand — a slovenly outfit 
showing all possible permutations and 
combinations of negro, Indian, and 
Spaniard. One of these, a little cleaner 
and more authoritative than the rest, is 
pointed out as the Commandante. 

Now comes the crucial time. How 
are we to be received ? We are already 
liable to arrest for having landed last 
night on unauthorized Venezuelan terri- 
tory. And our future halts on the way 
up the Orinoco depend on getting 
domestic clearance papers despite the 
fact that we come from a foreign port. 

Fitzgerald in any event has the 
assurance of an army mule. He makes 
142 



Up the Orinoco 

for the Commandante and grasps his 
hand with the warmth of a candidate 
for Congress in a close district. 

" Buenos dias, amigo, com' esta ! " 
He starts to tell in dramatic Spanish 
the perils we encountered at Soldado. 
While the Commandante's mind is thus 
kept occupied, Joe, well-coached before- 
hand, has appeared with a bottle of 
whisky and some glasses. We have 
edged up to the official headquarters by 
this time, and with expansive gestures 
have invited all and sundry to have a 
drink. At the same time our clearance 
papers are handed to the Commandante. 

We get rid of two bottles of whisky 
at Pedernales, and, after wringing the 
hand of every male inhabitant, leave 
with a paper, artistically extracted, from 
an official who is not authorized by any 
law under the sun to give such a docu- 
ment, permitting us to make stops on 
the way up the river. Fitzgerald, by 

i43 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

elaborating upon your letters to the Pre- 
sidente and adding his own blarney, has 
bluffed the licence out of the Comman- 
dante. 

" Very well done, Fitz," you say as 
the boat chugs out. And Fitzgerald 
winks. 

To go up the Orinoco by the Peder- 
nales passage we have been told to enter 
the first opening on the port side after 
passing a near-by point. We see this 
cano, but it looks too narrow to be the 
real one. So we keep on going and 
enter a broad bay with rather choppy 
seas. After a couple of miles of this we 
enter a wider passage, which turns out 
to be the rarely traversed Vagre mouth 
of the Orinoco. 

The mangrove-trees are like a wall 
on either side of the broad still river. 
All seem to have reached a standard 
height above water-level ; the labyrinthic 
network of their roots drops from the 
144 



Up the Orinoco 

branches to the water. It is like a 
phalanx of gigantic spiders, standing in 
the still water with their black legs inter- 
locked and bearing a burden of towering 
foliage on their backs. No more impene- 
trable wall could be devised. Nothing 
but monkeys, birds, and crabs can 
possibly penetrate a mangrove swamp. 
Of these there is the greatest possible 
number. Birds are everywhere. Big 
white and grey cranes are all along the 
river. Fishers of every kind dive down 
beside the boat. Ibises rise in a flock 
of scarlet. The "croaking hoatzins," 
relics of the reptilian age, strange birds 
with fingers under their feathers, shriek 
and flop awkwardly from bough to bough. 
We shoot some, for they are as big as 
pullets and look good to eat. But they 
smell badly and are tough as mangrove 
stems. Even Charlie and Joe decline 
them. 

Less than a day gets us past the 

L 145 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

mangrove swamp. These trees still occur, 
but there is no longer the solid wall of 
them. Land high and dry has begun, 
jungle with every kind of tree — banana, 
bamboo, mora, cedar, ten-foot grass, 
creepers and vines swinging in matted 
loops. We shoot two males of the big 
red howling monkey, sitting on a bare 
branch, and though the tree out of which 
they fall is but 20 feet from the 
water's edge, it takes two hours to find 
a spot at which to make a landing, get 
up the steep clay bank, and cut with 
machetes a way in, and we can only get 
one of the monkeys. 

Further along we find a landing-place 
where balata cutters have come. We 
land and ease our hunger with cold 
victuals and coffee. Two manatees poke 
their noses up out of the river from time 
to time and snort. One never sees more 
than the nose of a sea-cow, and that 
only for an instant. A fresh-water por- 
146 



Up the Orinoco 

poise jumps up. More monkeys are 
in the woods behind, but we let them 
alone. 

The trip from Pedernales is delight- 
ful. It is entirely cool and comfortable 
in the moving boat even at midday. 
The thermometer under the awning does 
not show over 85 . We anchor at sun- 
set in a shallow place amid stream and 
not a mosquito appears. It is cool 
at night — about 68°, and even a little 
chilly towards morning. A breeze from 
the sea — the trade wind — blows gently 
astern. The murmur of the forest is on 
either side. From time to time the snort 
of a manatee breaks the stillness, but for 
the rest all is quiet. 

As on the morrow we go on up the 
river we pass infrequent banana planta- 
tions kept by mestizos and Guarano 
Indians. A native dugout passes silently 
from time to time. These Indians are 
curious little people, hardly averaging 

i47 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

5 feet high. We stop at some of their 
landing-places. 

In one of the palm-thatched shelters 
open on all sides to the wind are half a 
dozen women and children. They speak 
no Spanish and seem to take no interest 
whatever in anything. A dozen wicker 
baskets of different shapes and sizes hold 
their belongings. With one of these 
baskets, 5 feet long and very slender, 
they make cassava. Tuberous roots 
looking like elongated sweet potatoes, 
taken from a tree which is of the same 
family as the Ceara rubber plant, are 
first peeled and washed. Next they are 
grated on a kerosene tin which has had 
holes punched in it with a nail. The 
gratings are thrown into the long 
narrow basket and squeezed. Stones are 
put upon it and everybody climbs onto 
the stones to help out the process. The 
compression is to get rid of the juice, 
which contains poisonous hydrocyanic 
148 



Up the Orinoco 

acid. The lumps of meal remaining are 
baked in flat cakes about 2 feet in 
diameter. Bread from a deadly poison ! 

A number of children are running 
about in this encampment. One little 
boy has several scars scored in parallel 
lines down his heel. " Caiman (crocodile)," 
says his mother after our repeated 
questions. The children all have pro- 
truding stomachs. Some say this is 
because they have the rickets ; some, 
because they eat cassava bread and drink 
water, a combination which bloats them ; 
others, that it is because the babies are 
not swaddled after they are born. Take 
your choice. 

The woods thin out in places as we 
ascend the Orinoco. Sandbars on which an 
occasional crocodile suns himself are met 
here and there. We shoot several, which 
squirm back into the water. In one place 
we get up a cano that leads nowhere, and 
have to come back and try again through 

149 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

a narrow gap down which the river races 
at a good 7 miles an hour — so strong 
a current that we can hardly make head- 
way. We run aground badly in a wide 
place, and have to go overboard, in deadly 
fear of alligators and sting-rays, and 
push off. 

At length, after passing a big island, 
we are out of the Delta and enter the 
Orinoco proper. We are running short 
of gasolene, but Fitzgerald knows of a 
Corsican woodcutter a few miles up 
stream who can supply some. Shortly 
after leaving the Delta we reach a town 
situated on high ground — Barrancas, 
meaning the Sandbanks — and tie up 
alongside one of the war-vessels of the 
Venezuelan Navy. 

This vessel is fully 35 feet long. Her 
Captain is asleep in his hammock, with 
one bare foot sticking through. We do 
not wake him, but get out a bottle of 
beer so as to have it available. We now 
150 



Up the Orinoco 

get the "Geraldo" in order, clean our- 
selves, change into some fresh linen, 
climb up on to the deck of the man-of- 
war, and order its cocinero to boil our 
coffee. 

In good time El Capitan wakes and we 
introduce ourselves. The process is like 
the old nursery rhyme about the kitty : — 

" You pet her and stroke her and feed her with food, 
And kitty will love you because you are good." 

" Will El Capitan sample some Trinidad 
beer?" 

El Capitan will " con mucho gusto." 

El Capitan finds the beer drinkable and 
the cigars smokable. He accompanies 
his amigos up to El Commandante. 
El Commandante finds the beer drink- 
able, the cigars good, and the clearance 
papers in perfect order. He returns with 
us to the war-vessel for dinner. 

El Capitan is a mighty man of valour. 
He has curly yellow hair and choleric 

151 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

blue eyes. He possesses a sword a yard 
and a half long. A dozen Mauser rifles 
to arm the crew are piled in the ward- 
robe among his soiled linen. His is an 
important post, for the boat dominates 
this part of the river, to the terror of all 
smugglers, except, of course, such as may 
be amigos. 

He mellows as the meal progresses, and 
tells of an arrest he made when he was 
a policeman on land before he became 
a ruler in the Presidente's navee. 

" You know the road from Paragua to 
San Felix," he starts. " I was once riding 
out on the llanos that way, and I stopped 
at a woman's house to drink coffee. I 
heard a pedlar insisting that she buy 
something which she did not want to buy. 
I went in and he became polite and left. 
I noticed that he was a Turk " — by which 
El Capitan probably means an Armenian. 

" I drank coffee and went on. Next 
day I was near there, and I noticed 
152 



Up the Orinoco 

vultures wheeling around. When I see 
zamuros I always go look what is dead, 
and I found a Turkish woman and girl, 
not long dead, with their eyes picked out. 

I went away and sent somebody to bury 
them. 

11 Now when I came to San Felix, I 
went into the inn there, and I saw that 
same Turk eating dinner. When he saw 
me he went to his room without finish- 
ing. 'That is queer,' I thought, and 
waited for him to come out. I then said 
to the landlord, ' Go tell the Turk I want 
to see him.' The Turk told the posadero, 

I I am sick and cannot come.' 

"So I went to the door and said, 
1 Open, or I shoot you through the door." 
He did not open, so I kicked in the door 
and arrested him. 'You murdered that 
woman and girl,' I said. ' Confess, or I 
shoot.' So he confessed. 

" I sent word to the Jefe Civil to know 
what to do with him. The Turk offered 

i53 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

much money and begged to be let off. 
He said the woman was his wife and 
they had quarrelled. But I would not ; 
word came to take him to Bolivar and 
shoot him if he tried to escape. 

" I took a sergeant and two men and 
started for Bolivar. A mile out the 
sergeant told the Turk to get down and 
tighten his saddle. Then he shot him 
through the head. One of the soldiers 
had a shovel, so we buried him and went 
back. That is what is meant by ' shoot 
him if he tries to escape/ They were 
content in Bolivar and promoted me." 
He takes a gulp of the warm beer. 

The Commandante is inspired to tell 
a tale. 

" One day when I was stationed at 
Apure, I was riding along the bank in 
the dusk, with the river below me, when 
I heard a groan. I slid off my mule and 
drew my revolver. On my hands and 
knees then I crawled down until I could 
i54 



Up the Orinoco 

see the outline of a man's outstretched 
figure. ' Esta Usted bueno ? ' (' Are you 
all right ? ') I called out. I heard only a 
groan. I asked again. 'Agua, agua,' the 
man called back, ' I die of thirst.' I came 
down and saw he had been shot behind 
the neck. I had a flask of white rum, 
which I offered. Then I went cautiously 
to the river and got water in my sombrero. 
He drank it in great gulps, and I propped 
him against a tree and questioned him : 
i Who shot you ? ' ' Lorenzo,' and I 
wrote it down. Then he told how 
Lorenzo was jealous of him and coming 
back from a dance had shot him. I 
dragged the wounded man to the road. 
After a time a mule-train came by. We 
tied a blanket between two poles and put 
him, still groaning, on to the stretcher 
and took him 10 miles to town. He died 
a few days after. Lorenzo was identified 
by what I had written down and had to 
go to prison for a year." 

i55 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Far be it from Fitzgerald to be 
stumped in such a competition. 

" While I was Prefect of Police at 
Maragoto, in Peru," he began, " there 
occurred the murder of a very wealthy 
and important cattle-raiser named Rodri- 
guez who had an estate a little distance 
from the city. In every way we tried to 
find the murderers, but could not. 

" A year later a man loafing in the 
market-place noticed two foreign-looking 
men pass. As they went by, one pointed 
out half a dozen blackbirds and remarked 
to the other, ' There are Rodriguez's 
witnesses.' The second man laughed 
and said, ' Yes, there they still are.' Now 
Rodriguez was so important a man that 
he who heard the two became suspicious, 
and came and told me what had passed. 
I said at once, ' Those are the murderers.' 
I sent and had them arrested, kept in 
separate cells and lashed, until they 
explained their words. They finally con- 
156 



Up the Orinoco 

fessed. They had robbed Rodriguez of 
two thousand dollars and then had 
murdered him. He had begged for his 
life, but they feared he would tell the 
tale, and so killed him. Before he died 
a flock of blackbirds passed over, and he 
lifted his hands, saying : ' You blackbirds 
are witnesses of my death. See that I 
am revenged.' The Italians had gone to 
Italy for a year, had spent the money, 
and returned to be discovered by the 
witnesses of Rodriguez. I had them 
shot next day." 

"Que maravilla!" exclaims the Com- 
mandante. 

" Es posible?" asks El Capitan. 

"Yo le aseguro a Usted que es la 
verdad, palabra de caballero," says Fitz- 
gerald without the quiver of an eyelid — 
"on his faith as a cavalier I " 

The veracious tales carry us well 
through dinner. We go on shore and 
leave some soiled clothes with the 

l S7 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

women washing in the river. There are 
no caiman so near El Capitan's Mausers. 
From time to time the women halt their 
labour and swim around in the shallow 
water. They are the only people in 
Barrancas who, so far as is visible to 
the eye, do a stroke of work. We 
walk around and inspect the town. It is 
like Pedernales, a row of adobe houses, 
the rough beams inside smoke-begrimed 
and crude to the last degree. We stop 
in at the one place of entertainment 
which the town affords and watch a 
pool game on an ancient French table. 
We return presently to the war-vessel 
and shoot at bottles and turkey buzzards 
without doing much harm to either. 

A little gasolene launch appears up 
stream rapidly nearing town. This is 
Fitzgerald's friend. " Hey, Mattey, 
Mattey ! " he shouts, and El Commandante 
and El Capitan cry in unison, " Mattey, 
Mattey ! " The launch comes alongside. 
158 




J 




Up the Orinoco 

Two small Indian boys about twelve 
years old are seated at the front of the 
frail cockleshell. They make a good 
landing and Mattey himself climbs up. 
He is a little wizened Corsican, fiery of 
temper and rapid of speech. He is 
engaged in getting out timber on General 
Desham's concession. Just at present he 
is cutting telegraph-poles for the Pre- 
sidente's electric-light plant at Bolivar. 
Mattey is down now to see some people 
due on the " Delta," which arrives the 
day after to-morrow from Trinidad. 
" Bien sure " he can and will supply us 
with enough gasolene to go to San Felix, 
perhaps enough to get us to Bolivar. 

Being relieved on this score, we con- 
sider dinner. What is our horror to find 
that while drinks, Worcester sauce, pepper, 
baking-powder and vinegar abound, there 
are no tinned meats or fish or beans left. 
Somebody with an enormous appetite has 
been stealing. It does not take long to 

i59 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

light on Joe, who had charge of the 
keys to the lockers and lost them so that 
nothing could be locked up. 

A council of war is held. 

"Shoot him," says El Commandante. 
11 Nobody will mind," adds El Capitan. 
" Throw him overboard," says Mattey. 
Fitzgerald is for " marooning." " Send 
him back to Trinidad by the ' Delta,' ' 
you suggest. Pending a decision, a 
motion to whale him is unanimously 
carried and executed. We go ashore and 
buy provisions of enormous price and 
dubious pedigree. 

Next morning, while waiting for the 
" Delta," Mattey suggests that we drop 
down and call on the Germans who are 
putting up a meat-extract factory just 
beyond Barrancas. We take the launch 
to their landing and find a big blond 
German with a gang of men fishing out 
a dump car that has fallen into the river. 
We follow the track a short distance in- 
160 



Up the Orinoco 

land. Concrete buildings are in course of 
construction. Beyond them is a very- 
cosy wooden house, of the most welcome 
contrast to the crazy shacks of Barrancas 
and Pedernales. 

A remarkably good-looking German 
hausfrau appears for a moment, and a 
bare-legged blond boy comes around the 
corner of the porch, looking like a 
youngster fresh from the beach of Sche- 
veningen. Mr. Max Dude, the manager, 
hurries out and gathers us in. We are 
invited to the forthcoming meal — breakfast 
or lunch, whichever one chooses to call it. 

The Dude family has come from some 
place near the border-line between Brazil 
and Bolivia — a place that nobody ever 
heard of. 

" It took five changes of steamers to 
get back to Hamburg," says Frau Dude 
plaintively, " but I got first prize for my 
hat with the aigrette plumes when I did 
get home." 

m 161 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

The meal is "echt Deutsch," and finely 
cooked. Frau Dude explains that she 
holds the whip over the cook personally 
or nothing would ever be right. 

Herr Dude is banking on the Mal- 
thusian law. " Where is the world to get 
meat in the next fifty years ? The United 
States is raising barely enough for its 
own use. Argentina and Australia 
supply England now. Prices are always 
rising, and there is never enough. Vene- 
zuela is the only great cattle area left, 
and it is almost untouched. We have 
moved up here and settled where ocean 
steamers can come and tap Venezuela. 
We can't ship much beef yet, but we 
begin and get the start for the future. 
After a while we will have here places 
like Armours', and these will be German.' 

The " Delta" is due at four o'clock, and 

it stays for only an hour. We watch the 

clock anxiously. Herr Dude disdains the 

" Delta"; he bets Mattey a bottle of 

162 



Up the Orinoco 

champagne she won't be in that night. 
But about six she appears. We make 
an engagement for dinner at seven to 
pay bets, and hurry for our launch. 

Hon. Robert Henderson, United States 
Consul at Ciudad Bolivar, Henry Wads- 
worth, a young American engineer coming 
down to put in the Presidente's electric 
plant, and an assortment of Venezuelan 
beauties are on board. Fitzgerald lines 
the officers up at the bar to see if he can 
jolly them into breaking the law and 
putting off some of his own gasolene 
which is on board. It does not work this 
time, so we have to fall back on Mattey. 

Later we go up with the timber-cutter 
to his bachelor quarters in Barrancas. 
The house has the same tumble-down 
appearance as the rest. The rear half is 
in ruins. Mattey lives in the first two 
rooms, which are furnished with a table, 
a hammock, and a barrel of gasolene. We 
load some of our empty cans, take a cup 

163 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

of very good coffee, and then start back 
to the German's. 

It is a wild night at Dude's. We are 
the only even partly-civilized people whom 
they have seen for months. Frau Dude 
is charming, Fitzgerald entertaining as 
ever, and Mattey shows real Gallic salt 
and surprising erudition. A remark of 
his, characterizing work in Venezuela as 
" a filling of the jars of the Dana'ides," 
comes startlingly in our environment. 

When the " Delta " bet has been paid 
two or three times over, Fitzgerald pro- 
pounds to the unsuspecting Teuton the 
addition to his gang of labourers of one 
able-bodied wharf-rat named Joe, strong, 
courageous, accustomed to turning heavy 
flywheels. 

" Gewiss, gewiss ! " assents Herr Dude 
willingly, for labour is hard to get up 
here. 

This seems hardly fair to the host, so 
you intimate, as tactfully as possible, lest 
164 



Up the Orinoco 

he back out of the bargain, that the afore- 
said Joe, while possessing many virtues, 
is not likely to achieve nervous breakdown 
by reason of too great industry and has 
a remarkable appetite for rum and canned 
goods left unlocked. 

" Der Schweinhund ! " says Herr Dude. 
■■ Never mind, he can't steal my donkey- 
engine. The cook will give him plenty 
bananas and cassava. I take him." 

Fairly late the party breaks up. Joe 
is left like Dido on the bank. The cap- 
tain is able to navigate the " Geraldo " to 
Mattey's lumber-camp, a mile up stream 
on the right bank. 

The camp-fires are burning when we 
arrive, but not a soul is to be seen. " The 
Indians don't know the launch," Mattey 
says, laughing ; " they think we are a 
commission." This seems rather an ex- 
treme view to take regarding government 
by commission, but Mattey explains : 
" Taxes have been imposed upon the 

165 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Indians which they can't pay. Then 
commissions come and seize them to 
work off the taxes. So the men take to 
the woods when an official appears." 

Mattey shouts lustily into the darkness 
of the night, calling certain names. 

The camp consists of a dozen shelters 
of palm thatch, each built between two 
trees and having a hammock stretched 
underneath. Fires are alight in three 
or four places to drive away the mos- 
quitoes. The head of a huge fish is 
roasting on a framework of saplings. 
We sample a piece of it, and also the 
red berries lying in a gourd on the 
ground. 

Some sharp eyes eventually recognize 
Mattey and the Indians hear his shouts 
and come back — a half-dozen men and 
as many women and children. Some of 
them wear clothes. They go tranquilly 
to their fires and presently to their little 
hammocks. By and by Mattey climbs 
1 66 



Up the Orinoco 

into his, after pulling down the mosquito 
bar, and we go back to the boat. 

Charlie has fixed up our mosquito net. 
But here you, taking as a proven premise 
that the net is no good for keeping out 
mosquitoes, try a new method for beat- 
ing them. No one ever heard of a turtle 
being troubled by mosquitoes ; obviously 
you must adopt his system. Now the 
inflated mattress that so nearly saw 
service as a life-preserver is covered with 
a case of heavy canvas. Taking out the 
rubber air-mattress there is left a canvas 
bag 7 feet long, and just wide enough to 
wriggle into. You crawl inside this and 
cover all your head except your nose 
with a bath towel. 

" I don't see how you can stand it," says 
Fitzgerald, getting under his mosquito net. 

"A Turkish bath is better to sleep in 
than a menagerie," you retort from the 
depths of the bath towel. 

It works like a charm. Breathing is 

167 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

entirely feasible and you are unpleasantly 
hot only in the early evening. You get 
nine hours of good sleep in the open 
air, while at dawn Fitzgerald wakes with 
his face a mass of lumps, like a toad. 

Next morning we go, through woods 
with no underbrush and only the hang- 
ing vines to trouble, to the lagoon behind 
the camp, and paddle around to get some 
shooting. It is a good percentage bag. 
We fire four shots and bring back a 
monkey, a hawk, a dove, and a white 
crane. There are no aigrettes on the 
crane, which is a male. The aigrettes 
are generally secured from the females in 
the breeding season, for the birds are 
wild and can be approached only at that 
time. Venezuela has passed a law that 
these white cranes are not to be shot, 
and the aigrette-hunters are supposed to 
pick up the feathers on the water. It is 
about as likely that this law will be 
enforced as that Sunday closing will be 
168 



- mi 

W : 




Up the Orinoco 

observed in New York under a Tammany 
administration. 

Back in the camp, one of Mattey's 
Guaranos skins our monkey. * This and 
the dove we eat. The Indians make 
away with the hawk and the crane. 

Charlie develops unsuspected senti- 
mentality about sampling the monkey. 
" I eat him if you do, sir," he finally 
says plaintively. The monkey is not 
very large and we consume most of it, 
Charlie disposing of his full share once 
he has started. Except for being a little 
tough the flesh is very good. 

In the afternoon we take a dugout 
coriara and paddle up a little river which 
is only 30 feet wide where it joins the 
Orinoco, but which widens beyond to 
200 feet. There should have been croco- 
diles here in numbers, but they were 
cleaned out, we learn, at the rate of 
two hundred a night by some Swedish 
pot-hunters a while ago. 

169 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

We shoot four divers, but can recover 
only one. They disappear permanently 
when wounded, apparently clinging to the 
bottom. 

Some distance up this river we strike 
inland towards the savanna. For a 
quarter of a mile we go through woods 
without underbrush. Then there is a 
treeless place with sabre-grass as high 
as the head. A dense hot moist jungle 
follows, impassable save by the trail we 
are following. Then comes a half-mile 
stretch of grass, waist-high. Another 
group of chapparal-trees appears, looking 
like a gnarled orchard, the trunks spaced 
40 feet to 60 feet apart as if artificially 
done. Finally comes the savanna, or 
plains of coarse grass 6 inches to 12 
inches high. A few isolated thickets 
show up here ; the mountains are in the 
distance. A herd of wild cattle is 
browsing on a distant stretch of llanos, 
but the binoculars show no game in sight. 
170 



Up the Orinoco 

The sun is blistering, so we get back to 
the coriara, paddle down to the launch, 
and start up the Orinoco once more. 

We pass the battlernented heights of 
Los Castillos, where young Raleigh fell 
in the assault of San Thome, and arrive 
next day late at San Felix. This is the 
most pretentious place yet. The town 
stands on the top of a high bank, where 
a column of mottled stone commemorates 
some forgotten general. A herd of fine- 
looking beeves is grazing on the slope. 
Burros loaded with balata, just in from 
the rubber forests, stand waiting to be 
relieved of their burdens. A four-mule 
prairie schooner jingles past on the road 
to the Callao mining district, ioo miles 
away. 

After the usual proceedings with the 
Commandante we go up to the Hotel 
Colon. This is kept by a Corsican, immi- 
grated only four months ago. Pictures 
of Napoleon deck his walls. A slovenly 

171 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

wife, a good-looking, but equally slovenly 
belle-sceur, and a stark-naked baby com- 
plete his family. 

A travelling theatrical troupe is stopping 
with them. It consists of M. de los 
Rios, Prestidigitateur and master of 
" Oriental Blak Arts," and Miss Judhit, 
singer and puppet-manipulator. The Pro- 
fessor is clean-shaven and very thin. 
He wears a skin-tight brown pepper-and- 
salt suit. Miss Judhit is tall, gaunt, and 
angular, and has dark eyes. She wears 
a red gauze waist, and keeps a tame 
parakeet on the tree in the courtyard. 
An English engineer of doleful aspect 
down from the mines is on hand. He 
smokes a pipe constantly and never says 
a word to anybody. An elderly local 
financial light with a prejudice against 
shaving, a bearded Corsican merchant from 
Callao, and a young Spanish-German, 
son of a big merchant in Bolivar, com- 
plete the quota of guests. 
172 



Up the Orinoco 

We get a rather good dinner at 
the Hotel Colon. Fitzgerald considers it 
due to Lord Byron to make violent love 
to Miss Judhit, which does not in the 
least trouble Professor de los Rios. They 
are to give a performance to-night — that 
is, probably. The Professor fears that 
everybody will be down on the river- 
bank to watch the " Delta," now due from 
Ciudad Bolivar. 

We encourage him and offer helpful 
suggestions. A procession through the 
town in costume would be the proper 
thing. 

"Only the priest is allowed to have 
processions ! " the Professor says listlessly. 

" The priest can't have them here," cuts 
in the Corsican merchant. " They threw 
the last padre into the river." 

" But that does not help me," protests 
the Professor. 

"Hire men to go down to the bank 
and, as soon as the * Delta ' leaves, shout 

i73 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

out, * Let us go to the performance of Pro- 
fessor de los Rios,' " suggests Fitzgerald. 

He shakes his head dolefully. " But 
we can let off fireworks,' he adds, as if 
on an inspiration. 

When nine o'clock comes, the perfor- 
mance being billed, " a las 8 y media en 
punto " sharp, we help set off fire-crackers 
and sky-rockets in the hotel courtyard. 
Nobody bothers about the sparks which 
fly down onto the thatched roofs of the 
town. 

In the next hour or so, some fifty 
people, a good half of them children, 
slouch in, bringing their own chairs. 
We, who rank as Charter Members and 
Patrons of the Arts, pre-empt rocking- 
chairs in the front row. The orchestra 
takes its place on a bench near the 
curtain. 

The orchestra consists of a leader, Big 
Guitar, a Trinidad mulatto in grey over- 
alls and undershirt ; Big Mandolin, a 
i74 



Up the Orinoco 

Zambo or Negro-Indian combination, in 
yellow linen with needle-shaped yellow 
shoes ; Little Guitar, a mestizo, or 
Spanish-Indian half-breed, in blue over- 
alls with a red bandana neckcloth ; Man- 
dolin, a full-blooded Indian with a sailor 
cap and brown trousers. The police 
force, in a dusky undershirt, beats back 
the children with the flat of his sabre. 
The overture is a local danza air. 

Professor de los Rios finally appears 
in blue dress-coat and knee trousers and 
the performance begins. He borrows a 
handkerchief from a lady, and while a 
thrill of expectation surges through the 
crowd, he cuts a hole in it. One peon 
wants to be shown if this handkerchief is 
the original. The Professor angrily pro- 
tests and aims a pistol at the interloper, 
who cows down behind the man in front. 
The people on the line of fire edge to one 
side. There is a gasp of horror and 
everybody ducks as the Professor fires. 

i75 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

But it is all part of the show. The hand- 
kerchief descends intact in a little para- 
chute from the ceiling. Immense relief 
and thunderous applause from the rather 
nervous audience. Bows from the Pro- 
fessor and music by the orchestra. 

A long entracte follows, during which 
the row of piccaninnies look with open 
mouth at the ceiling whence the parachute 
fell. The Professor is not crowding 
attractions. He opens the curtain a little 
and beckons to Fitzgerald, who goes in 
behind the scenes. The captain is soon 
back grinning., " The Professor says 
there have been paid only two pesos. 
These people have sneaked in from be- 
hind." 

Fitzgerald makes himself a collecting 
agent, and by the help of a dollar of yours 
gets the pot up to five pesos. The land- 
lord with an improvised bar is doing a 
thriving trade, meanwhile. 

Miss Judhit comes on now to sing a 
176 



Up the Orinoco 

song. Big Guitar is to accompany her. 
After jockeying for a start they get away, 
but something goes wrong. The impas- 
sioned ditty dies down and Miss Judhit 
glares wickedly at Big Guitar. You can 
imagine the Duchess of " Alice in Wonder- 
land " ordering " Off with his head ! " 
They try again. Poor Big Guitar is 
flustered by his previous failure and 
wilts beneath the acid frown of the 
senorita. The air trails off in doleful 
discords. Miss Judhit stamps her foot, 
mutters a "Caramba!" and flees from 
the stage. • 

The Professor nervously comes for- 
ward and explains that the accompanist 
is inexperienced, but that he himself will 
do the wonderful lost-coin trick. Miss 
Judhit holds the glass, glaring now and 
again at the unlucky Big Guitar, between 
her professional smiles at the audience. 
The coin is of course miraculously found 
in a negro boy's ear, much to his sur- 

N 177 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

prise and that of his friends. With this 
the show ends. After due felicitations to 
the troupe we stumble sleepily back to the 
river, and out to bed, via a plank and 
a schooner to which we have tied. 

We inspect next day the falls of the 
Caroni, set in the tropic forest, one of 
the most beautiful sights possible — " that 
wonderful breach of waters," Raleigh 
described it. We take the Comman- 
dante and his guitar along and the 
Spanish-German youth. 

On the way we break a mirror, and 
return to find that our gasolene will not 
take us to Bolivar and that the reserve 
supply expected on the returning " Delta" 
has not come. A telegram says it is on 
the way in a sailing vessel. Five days' 
dead loss, waiting at San Felix, is the 
significance of this. 

It cannot be borne. Several sailing 
vessels are at anchor before the town. 
You send word to the captain of each 
178 



Up the Orinoco 

that any one will receive the large sum 
of five pesos who will sail at once and 
take you to Bolivar. Only one captain 
is willing to negotiate — he is sailing next 
day anyway. 

This officer sends back word that he 
will consider the offer, which is not very 
promising, so we all go ashore for lunch. 
Just as the meal is about to begin 
Charlie comes up panting. " The captain 
sail-boat say he go Bolivar now." You 
take precipitate leave of Fitzgerald, and 
start for the river. 

" I'll meet you at Mannoni's Hotel," 
he calls. 

You jump into the coriara which 
serves as tender, hurriedly load in two tins 
of sardines, a piece of cheese and a can 
of corn, and climb aboard the " Hijo de 
Dios." 

The boat is a sloop, rigged with an 
auxiliary lateen sail which is used as a 
spinnaker in running before the wind. 

179 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

A microscopic cabin like a well lies just 
forward of the tiller. One coriara is 
towed astern, another smaller dugout is 
lying on the deck, which is covered with 
a mess of disordered ropes and blocks. 
The red, blue, and yellow flag of Vene- 
zuela with its seven stars floats at the peak. 

The captain is a thin, hawk-nosed 
mestizo in an undershirt and once white 
trousers. The first officer is a tough- 
looking indeterminate who stands by the 
helm. A villainous set of three deckers, 
including the dirtiest cocinew that ever 
maltreated victuals, complete the crew. 

The other passengers are four Indian 
girls, all smoking cigars, three naked 
children and one Zambo peon. The girls' 
baggage consists of a bunch of bananas, 
some pieces of cactus, a parrot tied by 
one leg, and a puppy. 

The vessel gets under way with a good 
trade wind behind at about half past one 
on Sunday. The captain gives you, to sit 
1 80 



Up the Orinoco 

upon, a heap of tarpaulin against the 
mast, in the shade of the sail. The 
cocinero lights a fire of faggots in a big 
wooden box with sand in its bottom, 
and brews coffee, which is passed around. 
The ladies puff at their cigars. One of 
the children, apparently not over three 
years old, picks up his mother's stub and 
sucks at it. 

We read and smoke and look stupidly 
at the landscape, and wriggle uncomfort- 
ably all through the long afternoon. The 
cook makes up a dinner consisting of 
coffee, boiled rice, cassava bread, and the 
stringiest and toughest beef this side of 
leather. 

Presently the passengers compose them- 
selves to sleep. The Indians lie wedged 
like sardines on the roof of the cabin. 
You are just behind the mast ; the puppy 
comes and curls up beside you. 

All through the early part of the night 
the captain, the mate, and the Zambo 

181 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

peon argue at the top of their voices. 
Occasionally they shriek in falsetto. The 
discussion seems to be about an infini- 
tesimal sum of money. You doze fit- 
fully through it, while with a strong 
wind behind the boat is ploughing its 
way up stream. 

Suddenly there is a chorus of cries, 
stamping of feet and rattling of ropes. 
The boom swings over in a jibe. The 
throat halyards of the lateen sail part, 
and it comes down with a bang, knock- 
ing one of the crew into the river. The 
night is pitch dark ; confusion of the pit 
reigns. After you have been walked 
over, the dog stepped on, and everything 
bedevilled generally, things are fixed up 
and we go on again, the castaway climb- 
ing back complacently. 

With malicious frequency now the 

boom swings across, and you find your 

head in the scuppers, your feet high up 

to windward, and have to crawl around. 

182 



Up the Orinoco 

About one in the morning the night is 
so dark that the mate does not dare sail 
any more for fear of the rocks, and he 
drops anchor. The negro passenger comes 
and sleeps beside you, the captain climbs 
into the dugout on deck, the mate curls 
up by his tiller. 

Before daybreak you awake, stiff from 
the hard deck. The parrot is screeching 
and there is a flat calm. The cook 
makes more coffee and passes it around. 
In a couple of hours a little puffy breeze 
arises. We lift anchor and crawl slowly 
up the river. 

Until about three o'clock in the after- 
noon this weather continues and we ad- 
vance at a snail's pace. The sun is like 
the opening of a furnace, beating down 
from above. The only shade is forward 
of the mast, where there is no room to sit 
and where the filth of the cook-stove 
and its smell are worse almost than the 
torrid sun, which continues to glare down 

183 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

on us savagely all through the day. 
The captain has an old umbrella, under 
which he reads a Spanish edition of 
Dumas' " Deux Diane." The Indians and 
the crew are used to the climate and 
roast stoically. 

In the middle of the afternoon, quite 
unheralded, a swirl of dust appears on a 
sandbank of the left shore a mile away. 
" Chubasco ! " cries the mate excitedly, 
pointing to it. " Chubasco"! One of the 
dangerous storms peculiar to the Orinoco 
is upon us. The captain shouts an order 
and the crew jump to their feet and 
lower everything but the jib. Save for 
that dust-whirl in the distance nothing 
stirs, and the water is like glass. Then 
all in a moment comes a rush of wind. 
The lightning flashes, dark clouds appear 
from nowhere and pour down a deluge 
of rain. The passengers get under tar- 
paulins and cower ; the sailors take it as 
it comes and are drenched in a moment. 
184 



Up the Orinoco 

In half an hour the storm has died 
down. You crawl out. Sail is hoisted, 
and with only another parted halyard 
we reach the spot where the negro peon 
is to land. His coriara, which was towed 
astern, is brought alongside and loaded 
with bananas and sugar-cane from the 
hold. With praiseworthy dexterity the 
crew steal several bananas and pieces of 
cane as they pass these down. The 
passenger counts out some money to the 
captain and pushes off. 

Night comes on again, but afar off 
we see the lights of Bolivar. There is 
almost no wind. A slight drizzle of 
rain is falling. We go up a dangerous 
channel with rocks like a manatee's back, 
close alongside. At last we cast anchor 
before the town. It is half past one : we 
have been thirty-six hours out from San 
Felix. 

You feel that you could stand anything 
save staying on the "Hijo de Dios" another 

185 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

night. Luggage cannot be landed, because 
it must pass the custom-house. But 
you, in bedraggled khaki, can land if 
fancy moves. The dugout takes you to 
a bank so steep that you have to use 
hands and knees to scramble up. Covered 
with sand and dirt, which stick to your 
wet clothes, you reach the parapet and 
start to find a hotel. The street lamps 
are burning, but not a soul is in sight. 
A little way down you meet a drunken 
sailor. He can hardly navigate, much 
less talk. Farther on is a boyish sentry 
with a long Mauser musket ; he politely 
leaves his post and guides you to the 
"Gran" Hotel. 

You push in through the door and try 
to wake a negro boy asleep in a hammock. 
No idea whatever can penetrate his head. 
He falls into a doze as he stands. At 
length a mulatto woman with a candle 
appears. " No rooms — go away — no 
rooms ! " she says hospitably. Arguments 
1 86 



Up the Orinoco 

avail nothing. Besides, the stone floor 
is as little inviting as the " Hijo de 
Dios" deck. 

Out into the cold world you go again 
and stumble into the market and the 
Barracks. An old woman turns to the 
south. " Hotel Espana esa ! " she says, 
pointing. You stalk over, find it finally, 
and wake a mestizo in another hammock. 
In this establishment they are used to 
parties arriving late and in a battered 
state. The mestizo leads you upstairs 
and you thread your way between other 
hammocks to where he opens the door 
of a bare, brick-floored room with a 
chair and a cot constructed of sailcloth 
stretched upon a frame. It has the sem- 
blance of a bed. Feeling like Ulysses 
cast on Calypso's Isle, without any 
Calypso, you drop on to the cot and 
fall into a dead sleep. 



187 



V 

THE CITY OF BOLIVAR 

A T six o'clock you wake, make such 
^ *■ a toilet as is possible under the 
circumstances, and breakfast at the hotel. 
As you have a letter to the Administrator 
de Aduana, General Navarro, it seems 
best to present it before trying to bring 
your armament ashore. 

General Navarro is the soul of courtesy. 
" Expect a while," he says. "We heard 
from Trinidad that you were coming ! " 
You " expect" a while, chatting and 
smoking his cigarettes. Presently you are 
agreeably surprised to be told that your 
belongings are below, ready to be taken 
away. He has sent a man to get your 
goods, and has passed them through 
1 88 



The City of Bolivar 

without a look or charge. A peon whom 
he designates as your porter is directed 
to take your luggage to the Hotel Cyrnos, 
kept by Mannoni, late of Corsica, and 
thither you duly follow. 

The city of Bolivar looks far less weird 
in the daylight than it did in the night. 
A tree-shaded walk along the bank where 
the band plays in the afternoon stretches 
in front of the Calle de Orinoco, the 
main business street. 

The river sweeps by below with a 
rapid current, for the shores converge 
sharply here, giving the town its former 
name of " Angostura" — the Narrows. A 
big rounded rock breasts the current in 
mid-stream. 

The business houses are solidly built, 
many with lofty galleries projecting over 
the sidewalk. The American flour im- 
porters, Dalton & Co., who have a 
monopoly of this business, face the 
steamer landing with their big arched 

189 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

doorway. Palazzi Hermanos, dealers in 
general goods and traders in balata, are 
a little way up the street ; beyond them 
are Jos6 Aquatella, commission merchant, 
Jules Tomasi, the Corsican, Blohm 
& Cie., German wholesale and retail 
merchants. 

The booths of the Plaza del Mercado, 
past which you stumbled the night 
before, are full of women and peons 
chaffering for rice and coffee and cheap 
wares. A bust of General Tomas de 
Heres gazes fixedly upon the placid ox- 
teams drawn up alongside. 

Beyond the plaza stretch the Barracks, 
where slouchy sentries, clad in rusty 
brown-cotton uniforms and armed in- 
differently with shiny old Mauser car- 
bines and Winchesters, look unenthusiasti- 
cally down on the market-place below. 
A guard of four soldiers and an officer 
are standing on the corner watching 
three convicts sweep the sidewalk. 
190 



The City of Bolivar 

Farther along is the office and house of 
the President of the State of Bolivar — 
Aristides Telleria— for whom the tele- 
graph-poles are being cut by your 
friend Mattey. A crowd is outside his 
door talking with his private sentry and 
waiting for an audience. 

Beyond this a narrow street with a 
flowing gutter down its middle leads up 
the steep hill. We begin, over the 
bumpy cobble-stones, a laborious climb. 
On each side are solid square houses, 
one or two stories high, with barred 
windows and a wide doorway. Absolutely 
unlike Trinidad, with its wooden build- 
ings embowered in palms and flowers 
are these white, yellow, and slate-coloured 
houses in solid blocks one against the 
other, barred and shuttered like prisons. 

At intervals you get a glimpse through 
a doorway and see the central courtyard 
with a fountain playing or a burro 
standing ready saddled beneath the arch- 

191 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

way. At the window of one house, iron- 
barred, provided with neither glass nor 
curtains, a girl is sewing. These Bolivar 
buildings are like the villas uncovered at 
Pompeii, of frowning exteriors and smiling 
courts, into whose brightness the living- 
rooms open through big doorways. 

At length Mannoni's Hotel is reached. 
The brother of the proprietor, who has 
recently finished his time in the French 
Army, and threatens to go back because, 
he says, " There are not enough pretty 
girls in Bolivar," leads the way to a per- 
fectly clean room looking out on an airy 
palm-planted courtyard. Three shower- 
baths are just around the corner. 

You are just in time for the half-past 
eleven meal. There are two main tables 
at Mannoni's in the breeze-swept room 
between the courtyards. One, serious, 
quiet, heavy, is the Anglo-Saxon table, 
where they put German drummers and 
stray English travellers. The other is the 
192 



The City of Bolivar 

Latin table, where Corsicans and Spanish 
flourish, where M. Mannoni himself sits 
and where another M. Mattey lays down 
the law amid difficulties. This table is 
in a constant state of effervescence, 
of explosions, of vivid words and far- 
flung gestures. By virtue of your letter 
to S. Jos6 Aquatella, you are seated 
here. 

As you enter a great discussion is on. 
Mannoni has just exhibited an ancient 
revolver, with the proud statement that 
his great-grandfather carried it in Paoli's 
fight against the Genoese. 

" Mais, c'est impossible," M. Mattey is 
affirming. " Revolvers were not invented 
until fifty years ago." 

Mr. Robert Henderson, the veteran 
United States Consul, from a small table 
of his own midway between Saxon and 
Latin, stands by M. Mattey. "We did 
not have cartridges such as would go 
into that revolver until the Civil War. 
o 193 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Only men with good teeth were enlisted 
because they had to bite off the cartridges." 

Here a Corsican from San Felix breaks 
in with the statement : M I know Man- 
noni's family in Corsica, and all the 
men were hunters and soldiers. So the 
revolver must have come from his great- 
grandfather/' 

" The Germans had the first cartridges 
with their needle-guns ; that is why they 
beat us in 1870/' says M. Mattey. 

The argument is still going on in 
detached fragments when the divers 
merchants leave the table to go down to 
their business. 

An envoy from General Navarro, a 
little, weazened Venezuelan official, ar- 
rives somewhat later in the afternoon. 

" The Presidente invites you to his 
house at four o'clock, and I, who manage 
various languages, will meet you at the 
hotel and accompany you." This is 
the purport of his message. You are 
i94 



The City of Bolivar 

tempted to suggest " mangle " for 
manage, but refrain. 

In the interim you visit the Consulate 
of the United States. Mr. Robert 
Henderson supplies you with American 
papers only a month or so old and 
some grafted mangoes, grown on his 
brothers estate, which taste like peaches. 

Just outside the Consulate windows, 
in the hot sunlight of the river-bank, 
Wadsworth, the American electrical 
engineer, who came up on the " Delta," 
is superintending a gang of twenty 
stevedores, busy hauling a section of 
the great flywheel of the Presidente's 
electric-light plant. Many idlers are 
looking on. 

The scene presents a picture of peace 
beneath the hot sun. " You should have 
seen the plaza yonder when General 
Matos, who is now in the Cabinet, was 
in insurrection against Castro," the 
Consul observes dreamily. " I did not 

J 95 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

think I ought to leave the post, so I 
stayed here. Two men were behind 
each of those trees firing across the river 
at Soledad, where the Government troops 
were. We had these windows barricaded 
with sacks of flour and balata — anything 
we could get to turn a bullet. The 
firing was so continuous you could not 
hear the separate shots. It was a grind- 
ing roar like a coffee-mill. 

"They fight, I tell you, like devils," 
he continues. " I saw the insurrectos 
charge the Government troops, machete 
against rifles. They came round that 
corner too quick and close for the regulars 
to kill. The revolutionists were splitting 
heads like coco-nuts. One hundred and 
fifty men killed out in front there. Don't 
let any one tell you these Revolutions are 
a joke. Two thousand men killed out of 
seven thousand engaged is what they did 
here. The cemetery of La Trinidad, where 
the insurgents of the town were attacked 
196 



The City of Bolivar 

by Castro's men, was simply heaped with 
bodies. Go and look at that lamp-post 
over by Wadsworth before you leave. 
Those holes are from Mauser bullets." 

Wadsworth has hitched to it a block 
and tackle to give a purchase for his fly- 
wheel. You stroll across. In the lamp- 
post, some 4 inches in diameter, there 
are twenty-two holes. In a telegraph- 
pole farther along there are thirteen. 

" What's up?" asks Wadsworth. 

You tell him that you are looking at 
the bullet-holes. 

" Gee ! " he says ; "1 saw them, and 
thought somebody had done it with a 
pick." He wipes his forehead and 
observes cynically : " I'm glad the army 
is good for fighting. They sent part of it 
down to help pull up this machinery and 
the men weren't worth a whoop. I had to 
engage these stevedores, who get two 
dollars a day instead of eight cents, like the 
Army. Gee! but I'm having a time with 

197 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

this little plant. They told me the founda- 
tions were all ready and I only had to set 
up the machinery. When I got here I 
found they had made the concrete without 
gravel and the holes for the engine bed- 
plate were 8 inches out of true. And slow! 
This isn't the land of manana, as they 
say ; it is the land of pasado manana — 
the day after to-morrow." 

It is about time to go to the Presidente, 
so you return to the hotel and wait for 
your escort. He comes soon, takes a 
refreshment with you, and then leads the 
way to the seat of government. The 
sentry presents arms and a black servant 
in civilian clothes takes in your card. 
You are ushered into a parlour over- 
looking the market-place. A beautiful 
jaguar rug on the floor, dainty Parisian 
furniture, and a few engravings are its 
furnishing. 

Almost immediately comes in a fine- 
looking man of about forty, with a deter- 
198 



The City of Bolivar 

mined-looking jaw and energy in every 
movement. 

" His Excellency General Aristides Tel- 
leria," says your guide, introducing you. 

"Sea Usted bien venido," he remarks. 
" We do not get many Americans travel- 
ling for pleasure here. The senor is a 
welcome guest." 

You express appreciation of the cour- 
tesies extended by the Custom House and 
the officials up the river, to which he 
responds by a deprecatory shrug. He 
asks about the hunting on the way. 

" I have hunted all around my own 
estates in Coro," he says, "but not here. 
This State of Bolivar is as large as France, 
and it keeps one somewhat occupied." 

You mention having seen his telegraph- 
poles in process of delivery, and he asks 
about how many are lying ready for 
shipment. 

"The electric light and the roads are just 
a beginning," he comments. "We need 

199 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

so much here — sewers, good waterworks, 
a railroad into the interior. But it is a 
long pull. There is so little population, 
and save for a few merchants the people 
are so poor." 

You remark incidentally that you have 
seen the river and hope to see something 
of the interior. Rather to your surprise 
he says at once, " I will arrange it," and 
adds the Castilian formula to the effect 
that his house is yours : " Haga Usted lo 
mismo que si estuviera in su casa." You 
pay your respects and presently leave. 

Passing up the street, you step in upon 
Senor Jos£ Aquatella, who takes you to 
the Club Union Commercial. He orders 
two lemonades, and you sit together on 
the broad portico overlooking the Calle 
de Orinoco and the river. 

"Sans blague, the Presidente is an ex- 
cellent man," he says. " He is one of the 
best Governors we have ever had, always 
working to improve the roads and to en- 
200 



The City of Bolivar 

courage cattle-breeding. A Presidente can 
do much. He is a Satrap, supreme over 
the entire State. If the other Governors 
were like our General and would help, 
much could be done with this country. 
The sleeping riches here are beyond 
belief. We are simply pecking at the 
edges. Nobody knows what is in the 
interior of this Guiana district. But so 
many officials just milk the cow ! Et la 
vache, c'est nous." 

We sip the lemonade and look at the 
river. " Never mind," he finally says. 
" Bolivar still stands up above there 
watching over the city. Let us go and 
look at him." 

In the cool of the late afternoon we 
climb the cobble-paved hill to its sum- 
mit, where in the square beside the 
cathedral, surrounded by palms and 
flowers, stands the statue of Bolivar and 
the effigies of the four Republics made 
from the land he won — Venezuela, 

20 1 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. The thin 
worn features of El Libertador look brood- 
ingly down over the city in which he was 
elected President of Greater Colombia, and 
from which he started the great winter 
march across the Andes to break the back- 
bone of Spanish rule on the continent. 

We go down to Mannoni's for dinner. 
One by one the guests stroll in. Wads- 
worth comes back and changes from his 
khaki to a shirt and collar. Mr. Hender- 
son appears, then two German drummers, 
then three Corsican traders and an 
English tourist whom nothing pleases. 
M. Mattey and his nephew enter 
with a young Cuban just arrived. M. 
Mattey is expounding to him volubly 
the merits of the city. 

" Voyez vous," he declares, " ici il n'y 
a pas de la fifevre. I have lived here 
sixteen years, and the only time I was ill 
was once when I got very angry at a man. 
Un acc£s de rage me rendait malade. Of 
202 



The City of Bolivar 

course, it is hot at this time, but not 
very — 92 to 112 in the middle of the 
day. The average temperature is 8o°, and 
it is fairly cool generally by night." 

The gong sounds for seven o'clock. 

"Allons diner," says Mannoni. 

"You should say 'Allons souper,' " 
observes M. Mattey, correcting him. 

Mannoni is wounded to the quick that 
his language and the regime of his estab- 
lishment should be so questioned. He 
declares that it is " diner" and nothing 
else. The rest of the table at which he 
is now officiating is behind him. Mattey 
adroitly shifts his ground. 

" But if you took your next meal at 
four o'clock in the morning, it would be 
dejeuner, and you would have had no 
souper? 

This puzzles Mannoni sadly. Every 
possible hour for a repast is imagined, 
and its title discussed. Sefior Aquatella 
says all depends upon whether you wear 

203 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

a dress-suit. M. Tomasi opines that it 
is decided by whether you go to sleep 
before or after. M. Vicentini believes that 
if you take white coffee the meal is break- 
fast, and black coffee it is supper. Man- 
noni's brother is appealed to as a soldier. 
He replies that in barracks every meal is 
called a " pail of slops," which the guests 
take as a point scored on Mannoni, at 
which they laugh uproariously. 

This question gets no nearer settlement 
than did the revolver problem. After 
dinner most of the residents stroll down 
to the club for billiards, cards, or to talk 
politics. The others sit and smoke around 
the courtyard, and very early everybody 
drops off to bed. 

When " El Luchador," the daily paper 
of Bolivar, is brought around, the wave of 
discussion waxes hot, although it is the 
most innocuous sheet ever printed. About 
half the paper is given up to first, second, 
and third advertisements of balata-con- 
204 



The City of Bolivar 

cession claims, official pronunciamientos 
regarding cattle in the city limits, thatch 
on houses, and such technical details. 

Among the advertisements the familiar 
Allcock's porous plaster spreads its sticky 
lure, flanked by many sorts of " Pildoras." 
A woman in wood-cut begs her husband, 
whose hand clasps a glass, to put a certain 
powder into his coffee. This will kill 
his appetite for drinking, which " is a 
vice and will ruin us." One Dr. Diaz y 
Diaz announces to "cultivated society 
and to the public in general " that he is 
a " Cirujano Dentista de la Illustre Uni- 
versidad Central de Venezuela." Some 
eminently safe and sane leading articles 
on the Bolivian Medical Congress, the 
celebration of the 5th of July, the Cattle 
Pest, the " Labor Noble" of the office- 
holders, and a few foreign cables constitute 
the reading matter. 

Fitzgerald appears a few days after your 
arrival. He has measured the Falls of 

205 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Caroni, and has come to the conclusion 
that here is the power for an inland rail- 
road. Pending an application for a power 
plant and railway concession, he is going 
back to Trinidad on some mysterious but 
pressing business. After a days stay he 
leaves by the " Delta," promising to meet 
you at Port of Spain. 

You gradually peddle off your letters. 
M. Jules Tomasi, the Corsican wine- 
merchant, puts you up indefinitely at the 
Club Union Commercial, of which Senor 
Jos6 Aquatella is President and M. 
Mannoni Secretary. M. Santos Palazzi 
is at his desk in the big warehouse, where 
balata, hides, machetes, wines, rum, tools, 
and saddlery lie in picturesque piles. He 
is a splendidly set-up man of about thirty- 
five, clean-shaven, save for a moustache. 
He is a keen sportsman, President of the 
local Gun Club and of an incipient Yacht 
Club, and owner of the stallion which for 
the last two years has won the Bolivar races. 
206 




A BELLE OF BOLIVAR 



The City of Bolivar 

He takes you up to his residence in 
the Calle de Constitucion, to meet Senora 
Palazzi. Their home is on the second 
story of an old, thick-walled Spanish 
house, up the hill near Mannoni's. In 
the hall-way beside the courtyard are a 
dozen deer-horns, trophies of bygone 
hunts. Light mahogany furniture is in 
the rooms. A gilt cabinet for little curios 
contains nuggets, carved ivories, and Dutch 
silver. 

Senora Palazzi, a slight vivacious Cara- 
cena, clad in the latest Parisian mode, 
greets you here. English and French 
she speaks perfectly, thanks to French 
governesses and two years at Convent, 
New Jersey. She is in touch with plays, 
books, and events as recent as the mails 
allow. 

In a dog-cart drawn by her husband's 
racing stallion she drives you to see the 
" Morechales," or country places around 
the outskirts of Bolivar. The low cot- 

207 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

tages are surrounded by grounds luxuri- 
ant in vegetation and abounding in all 
manner of fruit trees. It is a beautiful 
drive in the cool of the afternoon, with 
only occasional bumps where watercourses 
cross the road. Half a dozen vehicles are 
on the way, filled with the wealth and 
beauty of Bolivar. We drive to Mara- 
quita and return to the Palazzis' suburban 
tract, where they expect soon to build a 
house. 

At present only the stables for three 
racing horses and the kennels for a dozen 
tiger-dogs are completed. Curious dogs 
are these, descendants from the hounds 
brought over by the Spaniards. They 
resemble those which one sees in old 
tapestries, grey-brindled with grey-blue 
slanting eyes. They have no pedigree, 
but breed fairly true. 

Dinner with the Palazzis is an uncere- 
monious meal to which friends come as 
they will. At one of these repasts, where 
208 



The City of Bolivar 

you and a young Venezuelan are guests, 
Sefior Palazzi tells of an expedition he 
has in view to look for buried treasure. 

" This city, you know, was one of the 
last that was held by the Spaniards during 
the War of Independence. All the monks 
from round about and the wealthy land- 
owners and the officials fled to it. Some 
brought their possessions, and when 
Bolivar entered the city, buried them here. 
A tenant in one of my father's houses 
up the street found a treasure and left 
the country a rich man. All these houses 
were built by the Spaniards and have walls 
3 feet thick, with secret closets and floors. 

" Many buried money in the country. 
Eight million pesos' worth of gold is said 
to have been interred at the old monastery 
of San Seraphine. When the monks 
left they gave their Indians a basket of 
corn, and told them to throw away a grain 
each day. If no one had come when the 
corn was gone they were to dig up the 
p 209 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

treasure and throw it in the Caroni. 
Years ago a monk came with the plan 
of the hiding-place. He found the cave 
and the mouldering chests. But the 
treasure was gone ; the Indians had kept 
their word. 

" Now only a week ago some peons on 
an estate of ours found a cave with a 
doorway to it, bricked up. They started 
to break the door down, but got frightened 
of ghosts. I have planned to go there 
and enter. We may find nothing — we 
may find a treasure. People don't go to 
the trouble of bricking up a doorway for 
nothing. I am afraid of snakes, but not 
of ghosts." 

" The mention of your ghosts," says 
the Venezuelan, " reminds me of a 
veracious tale about a peon near our 
estate who met a veiled figure on a 
lonely road. 

"'Who are you?' said the peon 
tremblingly. 

2IO 



The City of Bolivar 

" ' I am the devil,' a voice answered 
in sepulchral tones. The peon walked 
up and held out his hand. 

" ' Embrace me, amigo. I married your 
sister. ' " 

Sefior Palazzi smiles broadly ; Senora 
Palazzi is a little piqued. 

"A disgracefully ungallant story," she 
says. " I will tell you a better one, and 
true, too. It is about a young girl, a 
Caracena, sixteen years old, who lived 
with her grandmother. I will not give 
the real names, though you will know 
them. We will call the girl Sefiorita 
Dolores Blanco. The grandmother be- 
longed to an old Caracas family which 
had some fine rare port, dating from the 
time of the Spaniards. The good dame 
was stingy and would let no one 
partake of the closely guarded treasure. 

" One day Dolores, coming from the 
garden, hot and tired, found the cave 
door unlocked and was seized with a 

211 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

desire to sample her grandmothers 
vintage. Noticing in the corner an old 
dust-covered bottle which had once been 
opened, she drew the cork and poured 
some of its contents into a glass. Then, 
hearing footsteps, she gulped it down 
precipitately. 

" At once a sickening nausea came over 
her. Her lips blanched, her eyes became 
glazed, and her face took on an ashen 
hue. The grandmother, who had come 
in, snatched up the empty bottle. It was 
marked ' Death to Vermin ' ! 

11 Dolores was carried hastily to bed 
and a doctor was summoned. Only with 
great efforts he was able to save her 
life. 

"When at last she was out of danger, 
the family group around her bed plied 
her with questions. 

" • Why did you drink the poison,' they 
asked ; ' did you want to die ? ' 

" Dolores, too exhausted for argument 

212 



The City of Bolivar 

and adverse to confessing her pilfering, 
just nodded weakly, 'Si, si.' 

" * She is in love,' said the grandmother 
dogmatically. 'Who is it?' 

"The girl felt lost and baffled. She 
was tired and confused and was becom- 
ing overwhelmed by the people around. 
Her grandmother leaned over, insisting : 
• Tell us who it is,' and her mother 
comforted her : ' You shall marry him. 
Do not be troubled.' 

"The poor girl could say nothing. 

" ' I know who it is,' said the grand- 
mother. ' It is Juan Garcia. Is it not 
he?' 

" The girl moved uneasily. 

" ' But she has seen him hardly twice,' 
protested the mother. 

" ' That is enough to do the mischief,' 
said the grandmother. 'Well, we cannot 
have her killing herself this way. I will 
add fifty thousand pesos to her dot and 
in three months she shall marry him.' 

213 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" Juan Garcia s surprise when he learned 
that Sefiorita Dolores Blanco had tried 
to poison herself because of him was very 
great. But after he had thought it over, 
had looked at himself in the glass, twirled 
his moustache and pulled down his tie, 
he had to admit the girl's good taste. 

" 'After all,' he meditated, ' I am begin- 
ning to tire of the life of a bachelor. 
This senorita is pretty, her family is of 
the best, and the dot is muy conveniente. 
Why not make her happy ? ' He proposed 
to her parents, who did not even consult 
Dolores before giving their consent. 

1 'Sefiorita Dolores Blanco became Senora 
Garcia, and they have lived happily ever 
after. The story leaked out, and though 
the family denies it, every one in Caracas 
knows it is true." 

Late in the evening, pondering the 

strange marriages that are made in 

heaven, you wander back to Mannoni's. 

You are still early enough to watch a half 

214 



The City of Bolivar 

a dozen less startling, but perhaps equally 
romantic, courtships arranging themselves 
through the bars of the houses along 
the hill. 

The Acaddmie Frangaise is under dis- 
cussion at breakfast next morning. 

"The Academicians can't even finish 
a dictionary," says one of the Latin table. 

Mattey declares "quand m£me" that 
they are the greatest body of men in the 
world. 

" But the Academy refused Fulton's 
steamboat when Napoleon referred it to 
them," observes our Consul. 

This reminds Vicentini of a picture of 
Napoleon at St. Helena. He is watching 
a steamboat on the horizon and smites 
his head, saying, "Si j'avais cru!" ("Had 
I only believed ! "). 

Wadsworth comes in to the table 
immensely pleased. "The foundation 
builder was going to hold up our whole 
installation with his delays. The Presi- 

215 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

dente came down himself to-day and cut 
away a mile of red tape. He has put 
the fear of God into the contractor. You 
ought to see the men working now. I 
think he said he'd hang somebody if the 
job was not done on time." 

The Cuban friend of Mattey's is giving 
some lurid details of the United States 
intervention there. "Why, the whole 
trouble was started for five thousand 
dollars," he says ; "I know, for I got 
some of it. Cuba had twenty million 
dollars in her treasury and the Yankees 
wanted that. They spent the money on 
roads, framing up deals with the con- 
tractors, and then they evacuated the 
country. It was all nonsense about the 
negroes or the Liberals stirring up the 
row. 

"We did not fight a battle; just marched 

around and burned farmers' barns," he 

continues ; " I had two hundred men, not 

over ten armed, and we wanted to pass 

216 



The City of Bolivar 

the Government post near Caballo. So I 
sent word to the captain that I was going 
to attack the town and ordered him to 
send away the women. He drew in his 
outposts and I was able to pass. It was 
a good joke on him. But that revolution 
was una representation dramatic d" 

The Commandante of Bolivar, El Senor 
Coronel Pilar Para, invites you to go 
shooting with him along a lagoon across 
the river. Wood-pigeon are the objective. 
It is a real test of shooting to get these 
birds in the instant before they dive down 
into the brush. The difficulties of wing 
shooting, however, do not trouble El 
Senor Coronel. He sneaks up to a dis- 
tance of about ten yards and lets them 
have it sitting. Then he turns around 
and grins, while a boy goes into the brush 
for the mangled remains. Twelve pigeons 
and two parrots are the bag before it gets 
too hot for comfort and we return. 

At dinner that night Senor Vicentini 

217 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

asks if you know a certain French paper. 
In a passing way, you allow. 

"They are blagueurs" he says; "last 
month they showed a picture of the 
Calle Babilonia here in Bolivar with the 
rebels of Matos's revolution, and labelled it 
1 Mexican insurgents at Juarez/ " 

" Did you ever hear of how Palazzi 
saved us from starvation in that Revolu- 
tion ?/' asks M. Mattey. 

"Was that Sefior Santos Palazzi?" 
you ask. 

" Si, si ; Santos Palazzi, whom you 
know," says Sefior Vicentini. 

" Bien," continues M. Mattey; "the in- 
surgents — Matos's men — had held this city 
for nearly two years. But after the big 
battle which Castro won, the Government 
troops came closer and closer in. They 
raided the country behind, where we got 
our provisions. They blockaded the river 
with their gunboats. Save a few who had 
depots, we could get no food except some 
218 



The City of Bolivar 

fish from the Orinoco or some mangoes 
from Marequita. Many were on the point 
of starvation." 

" En effet c'dtait affreux," exclaims 
Senor Aquatella, who has been listening. 

" It was at this time that Palazzi said 
he would bring food. Nobody believed 
him, for we knew that Castro was every- 
where victorious. But Palazzi got a 
coriara, covered it over with green 
branches, and on a night when there was 
no moon started down stream with two 
peons. 

" Only at night they paddled. In the 
day they hid in canos or under over- 
hanging trees. At San Felix was the 
gunboat. They stole past close to the 
bank, like a shadow between the beams 
of the searchlight. It was to stand 
against a wall with a file of men in front 
if he were caught. 

"After passing San Felix it was not 
so bad. He got down to the mouth of 

219 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the Orinoco and was picked up by an 
American cruiser — its name I forget ; per- 
haps it was the ' Gloucester.' Any way, 
the American captain refused to permit 
us to be starved. He had the ' Apure 
loaded up with food and started with it 
to relieve us. 

" At Los Castillos, the commander of 
the fort was going to fire on the ' Apure.' 
But the American captain trained his 
cannon and sent word that on the first 
shot he would blow the fort into little 
pieces. So Castro's men did not fire. 
And we got food." 

" Et §a gofitait bien, parbleu ! " adds 
Senor Vicentini. 

The Presidente has sent a request for 
you to come at four o'clock to his house. 
A tall, very dark Venezuelan gentleman 
with a thin eagle nose and a full beard is 
there — Senor Ygnacio Alvarado. General 
Telleria introduces you. Then he an- 
nounces the purport of his summons. 
220 



The City of Bolivar 

The seizor has been so good as to 
invite you to his estate at San Jos6, so 
that you may see something of the 
interior of Guiana. He is leaving in a 
day or so. Would you like to go? 

You are rather taken aback. The Pre- 
sidente has manifestly issued to this grave 
seizor a royal request that you be invited. 
Of course, however, you will be delighted 
to accept the kindness. It is not a chance 
to miss. 

The Presidente asks about your outfit — 
a poncho, a mosquito bar, a hammock? 

" Give me the pleasure of being allowed 
to attend to the equipment and to the 
provisions for the road," says Senor 
Alvarado in quiet dignity. 

"How about a horse?" asks Telleria. 

" Perhaps for the comfort of the trip 
a mule is better," says Alvarado. " I can 
get one from Montez." 

" Good ! " says General Telleria. Then 
he turns to you. "You are in the best 

221 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

of hands with my friend," he says cordially. 
"You will meet Dr. Velazquez, a great 
hunter, one of the finest examples of an 
intelligent and educated estate owner. 
Have a good time and drop in to see me 
upon the return. Adios, hasta la vista ! " 
He shakes your hand warmly. Rather 
bewildered and decidedly conscience- 
stricken at being thus imposed upon the 
hospitality of his personal friends, you 
take your departure to make ready for 
the trip. 



222 



VI 

ON THE LLANOS 

OENOR ALVARADO accompanies you 
^ to the hotel to work out the expedi- 
tion. He is the traditional Spanish 
gentleman, grave, dignified, soft-spoken, 
of punctilious courtesy. He explains in 
fuller detail the expedition which El 
Presidente has arranged. You are to go 
to his estate at San Jose, some seventy 
miles southward on the Garapo River, in 
the heart of the plains. There you will 
hunt and be shown the life of the 
Venezuelan ranch-owners. Food is to be 
carried packed on a burro for the stretches 
where no supplies are obtainable. 

" But most of the people along the road 
are relatives of mine," adds Senor Alvarado. 

223 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

He asks to see your equipment. The 
rubber poncho he condemns at once. It 
is too small, and you must have some- 
thing warm. " I will get you a covija" 
Your mosquito net, on the other hand, 
has meshes which are too large. 

" It must be very fine, like a lady's 
veil," he says. " It must fit well over 
the hammock. I will get the right 
sort." The hammock that you have 
acquired at Mannoni's he thinks will do. 

" Everybody sleeps in hammocks out 
on the llanos," he remarks. 

The mule is the next quest. We go 
down the Calle de Constitution to the 
Calle Babilonia and enter the general 
merchandise store of Guilelmo Montez. 
The proprietor is wedged in a corner 
behind a high desk. He has tobacco, 
canned goods, blankets, balata, machetes, 
cheeses, everything that one can think of. 
He is round as a dumpling, tanned 
nearly to the black of a negro, and with 
224 



On the Llanos 

his broad smile looks like an ebony 
idol. 

Yes, he has a "buen mula." It is in 
the courtyard behind, and we go out to 
look at it. A capuchin monkey on the 
veranda roof, chained by his middle, 
reaches for your hat as you pass, and a 
guinea-cock jumps to one side. 

The mule is brought out and looks all 
right, save for a saddle gall, which you 
object to. 

" No importa," says Senor Alvarado, 
shaking a long finger, " I will fix it. You 
try him." 

A couple of black boys go to get the 
saddlery. It takes two of them to bring 
it. Really, it is appalling what is put 
on to that little beast. First comes a 
blanket, carefully folded so as to leave 
a depression along the spine. Then 
follows a piece of sacking with a hole 
cut in it over the sore. Next an oilskin, 
stuffed with straw on the under side, and 
Q 225 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

reinforced over the withers. Then a leather 
saddle-cloth with coloured patterns sewn 
in. Last, the big embroidered saddle with 
pockets and jingling rings on all sides. 
It is covered with some yellow upholstery 
which looks like a bath towel. 

Alvarado smiles with pleasure as the 
latter is cinched tight. 

"We will put the saddlebags one on 
each side, and strap the covija behind. 
The mosquito net you can sit on, and 
we will put a surcingle over it, which will 
make the riding softer/' 

You feel as if you were on a miniature 
Eiffel Tower as you mount. No wonder 
the mule looks discouraged. His poor 
thin neck and wabbly ears are far below 
you. With the ferocious curb loose, you 
take a turn around the block and come 
back. The saddle sore has not rubbed 
and the mule goes at a very comfortable 
gait. 

Montez swears it is strong enough for 
226 



On the Llanos 

any trip, and Alvarado nods his head : 
"Buen mula!" 

You return to the hotel and arrange 
to leave next day at four o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

Some laundry work would be desirable, 
so the boy is called. 

"Only a Chinaman can do him so 
quick," he says. 

You summon the official head Celestial 
and put it to him. He thinks a moment, 
for half past three next day is a rush 
order in this land of pasado manana. 
The Mongolian, however, here as every- 
where in the world, is equal to profitable 
business. Finally, he agrees to deliver. 

During your last dinner at Mannoni's 
you hear another discussion, regarding 
the time of the steamer run from Ciudad 
Bolivar to Cayenne. It varies from two 
to five days, according to Senor Aquatella 
and M. Vicentini respectively. 

Wadsworth, too, gives you his last ad- 

227 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

monitions regarding the Spanish language : 
" Make everything masculine, and don't 
bother about tenses and things. People 
will look surprised, but still they will 
understand." 

You eat another of Mr. Henderson's 
mangoes, and go out into the court and 
smoke. 

At four o'clock Sefior Alvarado comes 
for you at Mannoni's. He is dressed in 
black and wears a wide brown plush 
sombrero and black leggings. Outside is 
a peon with his steed, and the "bueii 
mula" for yourself. The Chinaman has 
kept his word. Presently you are ready, 
with some spare linen packed in a saddle- 
bag, your rifle in its sling, and binoculars 
handy. The hotel turns out to see you 
climb on to the lofty peaked saddle, tower- 
ing above the mule, and start up the 
cobbled hill. 

Along the steep road, bordered by the 
pale blue and yellow stucco houses with 

2*8 



On the Llanos 

their barred windows, in front of the 
white cathedral and the brooding statue 
of Bolivar, we go, the mules picking their 
way daintily among the cobble - stones. 
Through the Plaza Miranda on the top 
of the hill the hoofs clatter. We pass 
the Infantry Barracks, then take the steep 
slope, and draw in under the shadow 
of the old Spanish monastery, with its 
sentry-boxes on the wall. We skirt the 
cemetery of La Trinidad, leaving the 
ruined Spanish fort which guarded the 
height to our left. 

" There Bolivar stood," says Alvarado, 
"just before he entered Angostura to be 
named President. There he chose the 
colours of the flag for Greater Colombia. 
It had been raining, and the sun came out 
over the city as El Libertador's force came 
onto the crest. 

"'What better flag,' he exclaimed, 'can 
we have than the colour of the heavens 
with the rainbow aglow?' That is why 

229 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the nations that were made from his 
great Republic have such bright colours 
on their banners." 

We enter a road leading between sub- 
urban country houses. One cottage has 
over its door the name " San Buena- 
ventura." 

A peon here salutes our host. He reins 
in his mule for a moment, and each man 
puts his hand on the other's shoulder. 

" Buenos dias, amigo," says Alvarado. 

Three or four other friends come up 
while we stand and are greeted in this 
way. Alvarado knows a good half of 
the people in the streets as we pass along, 
and for each one, high or low, he has 
this affectionate salutation. 

The road broadens out presently into 
a succession of trails with grass between, 
and we pass woods and thickets of middle- 
sized trees. After about two hours 
of riding we meet a band of peons, 
whom Alvarado hails and from whom 
230 



On the Llanos 

he asks a question regarding Dr. 
Sarto. One of them turns back and 
takes down the bars of a gate a few 
hundred yards ahead. We enter grounds 
with small mango-trees and cedars planted 
here and there, a neat row of stones circling 
each trunk. 

In front is a long, low stucco building 
whose roof-thatch covers a veranda which 
runs completely around it. 

" A nephew of mine, Dr. Sarto, lives 
here," says Alvarado. 

We hand our mules over to some boys 
who run to our service and enter the 
gallery. Two ladies come out to meet 
us. For a moment one suspects that 
they have just risen from a surprised 
siesta and have been caught in rather 
disordered robes-de-nuit \ for they are 
dressed in shapeless loose white frocks. 
But this proves to be the regular house- 
dress of the wives and sisters of country 
estate owners. 

231 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

The ladies conduct us to the end of 
the veranda, which is the reception-room 
of the house. Canvas, reefed like the sail 
of a ship, is stretched under the thatch, 
ready to be let down in case of rain. The 
walls of the house are of adobe, whose 
paint, once white, is much flaked away 
and is scarred with nail-holes. Two faded 
engravings hang on the side wall, and 
these, with a table and some rocking- 
chairs, painted black, constitute the 
furnishings. 

This family is one of the comfortable 
bourgeoisie of Ciudad Bolivar. Dr. Sarto 
owns a pharmacy, and rides out home 
after Ja few hours in town each day. He 
is a physician, and while speaking Spanish 
only, he reads French medical books with- 
out difficulty. 

His wife, who has refined features and 

a pleasant address, speaks the remnants of 

French and English. She once had a fair 

knowledge of both languages, but long iso- 

232 



On the Llanos 

lation from the world and its interests has 
buried it and her other possibilities. Her 
five children are sturdy-looking and well 
cared for, but Madame Sarto is sallow, 
careworn, and ailing. 

The Doctor himself comes home 
presently on mule-back. He is a well- 
built, strong-looking man of about forty, 
more of the German than the Spanish 
type. He takes us for a stroll around the 
gardens while dinner is being prepared. 

In a corral made of crooked posts from 
the chapparal-trees there are half a dozen 
rather skinny-looking cows. Farther on 
is a little plantation which the Doctor has 
started, with a couple of tentative irriga- 
tion ditches. The yuma-tree, from whose 
roots cassava is made, bananas, bread- 
fruits, and other plants are growing. A 
cashew-tree, whose fruit is edible though 
not very good, but whose nut, growing 
outside the fruit, is really excellent, is 
flourishing behind the house. The 

233 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

children run ahead of us with sticks to 
knock off mangoes. 

Just at nightfall we sit down on the 
veranda to eat la comida. Boiled beef 
with rice is the piece de resistance, a sort 
of Yorkshire pudding, made of plantains, 
eggs, and milk, accompanying the meat. 
Wine and beer are on the table, and are 
liberally taken. A crowd of little negro 
children and women dependents of the 
house, who hover habitually about the 
kitchen and the servants' quarters, pass the 
plates and serve the repast. One expects 
every minute to see them fall over each 
other and make a general cataclysm, but 
they graze adventures and deliver the 
viands safely. 

The dinner scene is suddenly enlivened 
by a shriek from one of these boys, who 
has just missed stepping on a scorpion 
with his bare feet. We get up and 
kill the insect by stamping on it with 
boots, then go back to some excellent 
234 



On the Llanos 

preserves called "papoi," served with a 
white cheese which flakes away like an 
onion — "quesa a manos," it is called. 

We retire after dinner to the other end 
of the veranda for coffee and cigarettes. 
Dr. Sarto lights an acetylene lamp, and 
we puff a few minutes in silence. Outside 
the moon rises slowly, and you settle for an 
evening of quiet comfort. But Alvarado 
does not give us much indulgence. 

"This is just the time to travel,'' he 
says; "the mules go best by night." 

So the mules are brought around and 
we take leave of the Doctor's household. 
Two peons on horseback join us now. 
They drive before them a little burro with 
a box of provisions slung on each side of 
his back. To the tail of one peon's horse 
is moored a spare mule. The burro runs 
free, and when the front rider has nothing 
better to do he gives the animal a slash 
with his whip. We go out of the gate 
and into the night. 

235 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

A good moon is shining, but the sky 
is so overcast that one can barely see 
the path ahead. Alvarado goes on, how- 
ever, without hesitation. The forest has 
thinned, and w T e follow now an irregular 
road, now cattle-paths, riding in Indian 
file. Twice Alvarado deserts these trails 
altogether, and for a mile or so cuts across 
a wide savanna of bunch grass, where 
shadowy cattle, stunted bushes, and chap- 
paral-trees appear from time to time in 
the wide expanse of grass. 

Two labouring ox-teams of six yoke 
are passed, drawing a high cart with 
wheels set 7 feet apart. Peons walking 
alongside are goading on the unwilling 
cattle. 

After about three hours of silent riding 
the dim outlines of a house and a corral 
loom ahead. We ride up and dismount. 
The peons unload the animals and go off 
to picket them where they can graze. 
We enter without ceremony a large dim 
236 



On the Llanos 

room and sling our hammocks from the 
beams which support the roof. 

" No mosquitoes here," says Alvarado ; 
"do not get out your net." 

None of the inhabitants of the house 
stir. After removing gaiters, shoes, and 
coat, you take wearily to the hammock. 
Towards morning you open one eye and 
reach for the woollen covija. It is actually 
chilly. Soon, however, you are awake for 
good, though the sun has just risen. 
Cocks are crowing, parrots screeching, 
cows lowing somewhere outside, and 
people moving about and talking. You 
look around and finally get up. 

You are in a big room with the thatch of 
the roof rising to an acute angle above 
your head. At the doorway this is cut 
away like a bang on a child's forehead, but 
along the rest of its length the roofing 
comes down shaggily to within about 
5 feet of the ground. The stalks of the 
palms used in thatching are laid in regular 

237 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

ranks over beams and are held together 
with fibres. Not a nail is used. The 
sapling lattice framework forming the sides 
of this big central room leave it open to 
every breath of air. The kitchen, at one 
end, is enclosed up to 2 feet under the 
roof with wattle and thatch, and the 
owner's bedroom at the end of the casa 
opposite the kitchen is completely enclosed 
in the same way. The floors are of clay, 
stamped hard and irregularly laid, giving 
miniature mountains and valleys — an 
ideal battle-field for a child's lead soldiers. 

Of furniture, there are in the centre room 
only a table and a chair, hammocks in the 
bedroom, in the kitchen a few pots, a 
wooden trough, and a coffee-can. On the 
walls of the living-room a couple of 
muzzle-loading guns, a machete, and some 
old saddlery complete the inventory. 

The owner, Pedro Cristine Praga, of 
mixed Indian and Spanish blood, is a 
typical small proprietor. He is slenderly 
238 



On the Llanos 

built, with a heavy moustache and side 
whiskers. His wife is much older-look- 
ing and shows the wear of work. His 
daughter, about seventeen, is quite 
comely, with great dark eyes. So are 
also the two half-grown boys and the 
two little " muchachos," Juan and 
Anastasia. 

The women shuffle about in their 
sandals — alpargatas — preparing breakfast. 
Coffee is made by pouring hot water 
several times through a coffee-bag. 
Some cheese and cassava bread are laid 
out for us. Fried eggs and milk fresh 
from the cow complete the repast. 
After breakfast the girl goes to a bunch 
of dried tobacco leaves in a corner, 
rolls herself a cigar, and lights up. 
You get her to make you one also. 
It is shaped like a diseased cheroot, 
but is not bad to smoke. 

After a short stay the animals are 
brought up and we mount and go on, 

239 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

so as to travel as much as possible 
while it is still cool. We are on a 
fairly elevated plateau now, seared by 
precipitous gullies, whose coarsely sanded 
sides are dark red. Down in these 
arroyos the thickets grow together into 
a jungle of trees, creepers, bamboo, and 
cactus. The water brings dense vegeta- 
tion all along its path, while on the flat 
sandy plateau nothing is met for long 
distances save bunch grass and the 
gnarled chapparal-trees. 

Through this we travel mile after 
mile, following dubious-looking paths 
among the bunch grass. The red sand- 
stone formation and sharp peaks and 
gullies give place to occasional ledges of 
granite, strewn with boulders, thickets 
growing up at times around the rocks. 
The grass is very coarse and tufted. 
The cattle we sometimes pass are thin 
and small. Towards noon the heat has 
become intense. 
240 



On the Llanos 

" Hace mucho calor," you gasp. 

"We are near the place for a halt/' 
says Alvarado consolingly. 

The peons lash the burro along behind 
us, and the mules need to be encouraged 
with the barbed espuelas every few feet. 
At last a brown adobe house, with a 
small banana plantation behind, appears 
out in the bare llanos. We ride up, 
slide off our mules, and walk into the 
centre room, while the peons unload the 
animals and bring in the provisions. 

This house is built on the same plan 
as that of the peasant proprietor of last 
night, save that the open lattice-work 
is plastered over with adobe and every- 
thing is shut in and correspondingly 
dark and stuffy. We are welcomed by a 
little old crinkly-haired Zambo woman 
wearing smoked spectacles and nearly 
blind. Alvarado greets her with his 
usual courtesy and guides her to the 
kitchen, where she and another woman 
r 241 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

prepare coffee. About half an hour later 
lunch is ready. It consists of a big 
meat stew, in which plantains, a yellow 
vegetable with a green skin like a frog's, 
a white fibrous vegetable looking like a 
potato, and some rice swim round 
together. Cheese, more coffee, and some 
of our preserved milk round out this 
repast — el almuerzo. 

Chickens in numbers are running about 
underfoot, including one curious breed 
called "grifo," the black feathers of which 
stick out at right angles. There is also 
a sort of white bird, like a pullet, but 
longer and thinner, and a big-headed 
sun-bittern which catches and eats flies. 

We hang up our hammocks and pre- 
pare to sit under cover until the sun is 
lower, for it is now torrid outside, and 
hot even under the cover of the house. 
Alvarado stretches himself out comfort- 
ably and talks. 

"This road to San Jose is safe enough," 
242 



On the Llanos 

he says ; " here all are friends and rela- 
tions, for our family and the Perez and 
the Velazquez have been on the land for 
centuries, but beyond, in Paragua, it is 
bad — un pais malo. Once I went far into 
Paragua to look at some balata forests. 
The place had a bad name, but I knew 
of the wealth people get with balata. A 
man who had been there offered to guide 
me — an Indian with a big machete-scar. 
Nobody in San Jose knew him, but I 
hired him, got the mules, and started. 
We travelled for two weeks. Then one 
day we stopped at a little mncho to eat. 
I noticed that the guide said something 
secretly to the man of the house, whose 
looks I did not like. 

" A little farther on I saw my Indian 
looking to right and left and touching 
his hat with his hand. We were going 
through a very thick forest, and I became 
suspicious in an instant. I drew my 
revolver and aimed at him. 

243 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" ' Call your friend who is in those 
bushes,' I said. 

" He called ■ Ramon/ and the man 
came out with a lasso in his hand. I 
aimed the revolver, and told my Indian 
to tie him to a tree. 

" Their scheme was to lasso me and 
rob, and probably kill me. Many tra- 
vellers had disappeared in Paragua. But 
I was in a bad position, for I did not 
know the way, and the nearest town was 
40 miles. So I rode with the guide in 
front of me and the pistol at his back 
for 30 miles. Then I could see the 
road. I tied him to a tree with many 
knots and rode on quickly. 

"The Jefe Civil was in the town, and 
he sent and got the Indian. He con- 
fessed he had meant to rob me, and 
they found that he had murdered other 
travellers. So they shot him and his 
partner. It was a close escape. But 
here it is all right, save in time of 
244 



On the Llanos 

revolution, when thieves and soldiers are 
all about." 

We slap at the flies and wait for the 
heat to diminish. About four o'clock the 
mules are brought out and we start off 
once again. It is still chokingly hot, and 
the miles of savanna spread out un- 
brokenly in the glare. Now and then 
granite rocks and thickets are passed, and 
far ahead a mountain range, the Parida, 
is dimly outlined. 

A few birds are flying among the rare 
chapparal. On one bush is perched an 
oriftopa, a sort of small vulture, so tame 
that we pass it 30 feet away, and an occa- 
sional zamuro, or turkey-buzzard, wheels 
in the sun far overhead. 

Clouds of the purest white, in great 
rolls like mountains of billowy cotton, are 
heaped in the pale blue of the sky. Some 
are distant, some seem so close that one 
could almost touch them. The sun sinks 
lower and lower. It tinges now the 

245 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

under side of the clouds, and flushes to 
deepest crimson the whole mass along the 
western horizon. On the east a thunder- 
storm is brewing, and the clouds are iron- 
grey. Now, in paler reflex, the splendour 
of the west steals over them too. The 
far-off shower shows like a broad band 
of rose, while north and south the clouds 
every moment become darker. A few 
minutes longer the glory of the sunset 
lasts. Then almost at once, like a curtain, 
falls the night. 

With the last light of the dying day 
we ford a river bordered by great dark- 
green trees and palms, skirt a banana 
plantation, pass a chapparal-trunk corral 
and enter the grounds of Senor Ber- 
mudez, a cousin of Alvarado. 

Senor Bermudez, driven out by an early 
Venezuelan revolution, was for many years 
a resident of Trinidad. But there he 
met business reverses, so he has recently 
returned and bought this estate. The 
246 



On the Llanos 

senor and his wife welcome us to a 
home which is a duplicate of Dr. 
Sarto's, save that it is more poorly 
equipped. The peasant's rough plenty of 
yesterday is absent here. Life is evidently 
a hard struggle for the old man and his 
wife and two grown daughters. He has, 
however, the tradition of Spanish hos- 
pitality, and offers his best entertainment 
and a corner of the porch for the ham- 
mocks. 

Senor Bermudez has a sample of tobacco 
from a valley some distance to the west- 
wards which he believes to be as good 
as the best Cuban. It takes more of an 
expert than you are to pass judgment. 

" I had some cigars made," he recounts, 
" and got a Partagas band put around 
them. I gave a box to Senor Antonella, 
who is one of the gourmets of Port of 
Spain, and he said they were particularly 
good cigars. Pie was very angry when 
we told him they came from Venezuela, 

247 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

but he had to allow they were fine 
smoking." 

We are lit in to dinner by a single 
flickering candle. The poor light throws 
on to the dark walls shadows of gigantic 
gestures and heads with enormous features. 
It is weirdly fascinating. From time to 
time, when some one turning a little 
presents his profile to the trembling 
yellow flame, a huge hand lifts some- 
thing like a pronged pitchfork up to a 
mouth which opens like the gullet of a 
monster. It is an eerie dinner, and, as we 
have been many hours in the saddle, you 
soon accept the hospitality of the rafters. 

You sleep, however, with a certain 
difficulty. Two geese, early in the night, 
come to roost on the rail near your head, 
and hiss to the world in general before 
finally retiring. A pig makes an investi- 
gation of your shoes. Sundry chickens, 
which should have roosted long ago, come 
in clucking anxiously. Cocks crow to 
248 



On the Llanos 

the moon and the stars all through the 
night. An uneasy cow in the corral 
near by utters a periodic " moo." 

At dawn you are definitely awakened 
by Alvarado. You find everything packed 
but your hammock. One of Sefior Ber- 
mudezs daughters has a cup of black 
coffee ready, and you are very soon in 
the saddle. 

"Adios, sefior," the ladies call to you. 
Alvarado and Senor Bermudez touch 
hands to shoulders and our cavalcade 
starts. 

"We will breakfast at San Jos6," says 
Alvarado. 

The llanos become more rolling as we 
advance and the rocky thickets more 
numerous. The grass seems better. It 
is dense, and in some places it has lost 
its clumpy character and is all one sway- 
ing sward, "como un mar de yarbas," 
like Humboldt's "sea of grass." We pass 
many little watercourses, whose presence 

249 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

can be discovered a long way off by the 
palm-trees which follow them down. An 
occasional lagoon is seen. We skirt one 
whose soft border is churned by the 
cattle into a bumpy morass. A solitary 
white crane is standing sentry over it. 
A palm glade is left behind and a boulder- 
covered hill-slope. The Parida Mountain 
Range is nearing us ahead. 

"This is my land," says Alvarado, and 
his eyes light with the pleasure of a 
home-coming. 

We ride a couple of miles farther to 
where the trail divides. The peons and 
the burro are behind. Alvarado dis- 
mounts and lays twigs from a chapparal- 
tree across one of the trails. 

" Thus the peons will know which path 
to take," he explains. 

A half hour farther on we descend 
into a hollow and reach a cattle-pond 
with lofty trees around it. Beyond, we 
climb back onto the upland. 
250 



On the Llanos 

" Nearly there," calls our host eagerly. 

A barbed-wire fence appears presently, 
and this we skirt for another mile. Then 
a clump of big dark-green mango-trees 
arises, and a chapparal-wood corral, and a 
long, low, thatched house. A boy runs 
forward and lets down the bars and we 
ride in. 

A strong-looking, much-tanned youth 
of about eighteen comes up and affection- 
ately salutes Alvarado. 

" My son Carlos," he is introduced. 
We walk up to the entrance of the portico. 
Two ladies with sallow waxen com- 
plexions in the now familiar white shape- 
less dresses appear from inside. One is 
Senora Alvarado, the other an orphan girl 
whom they have taken into the family 
without any bond of relationship or 
obligation. Carlos tells you that he has 
spent two years at school in Trinidad. 
He speaks some English. The rest of 
the family know only Spanish. 

25 1 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

While breakfast is being prepared 
Alvarado gets out the gifts which he has 
bought in Bolivar for his family. There 
are boxes of scented soap for Senora 
Alvarado, a brooch for the girl, a pair 
of knitted blue socks for the two-year-old 
baby, a tin trumpet for the six-year-old 
muchacha, and a new necktie for Carlos. 
The recipients are all delighted, and every- 
thing is spread out on the table. 

The almuerzo comes on in due time — 
coffee with fresh milk, fried eggs, and 
cassava bread. You are not deficient in 
appetite nor are you averse to a siesta, 
in the heat of the day, after break- 
fast. The hammocks are hung on the 
porch. 

Lying in them lazily, you can follow 
the parrots screaming in the mango-tree 
overhead. Half a dozen vultures are 
perched on the stockade of the corral, 
watching a sick calf with sinister patience. 
A peacock, with much whirring of plumes, 
252 



On the Llanos 

is displaying his charms to an absolutely 
indifferent white pullet, while the neglected 
pea-hen, with one fledgling, is quietly 
picking up a living for the family in 
another portion of the garden. Down by 
the kitchen to the left a sow, followed by 
half a dozen pink pigs, is rooting beneath 
a lime-tree. A flock of blackbirds wheels 
in the sky and passes. Guinea-fowl and 
chickens wander up and down the piazza. 
A tiger-dog comes and pokes his nose 
into your hand. A white turkey gobbles 
in emulation of the peacock. 

On the adobe railing in front of you 
is a row of saddles, while bridles, sur- 
cingles and straps are hanging on the 
posts. The wall behind is pasted up with 
advertising lithographs of girls' heads, 
amid which is a cartoon of a man who 
sold on credit when he should have sold 
for cash. A religious calendar, giving 
the names of the Saints to whom each 
day in the year is sacred, occupies a promi- 

253 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

nent place, and chromos of the Venezuelan 
Presidents "dado" the gallery. Close 
beside the hammock are slung big gourds 
that hold a reserve of drinking-water and 
a porous jug which, being always damp, 
keeps cold a supply for immediate require- 
ments. Just under the thatch are 
suspended the skulls of eleven jaguars 
shot in the neighbourhood of the ranch. 

At about the end of the siesta a well- 
set-up figure in white rides up to the yard 
gate. He is welcomed by the family and 
introduced to you — Dr. Eduardo Velaz- 
quez, the seizor to whom the Presidente 
has given you a note. 

The Doctor is about thirty years old, 
and is tanned a dark brown by constant 
riding in the torrid sun. A heavy mous- 
tache covers strong white teeth ; his air 
is alert and keen. He has studied medi- 
cine for two years in Paris, but on the 
death of his father last year came out to 
manage the family estates. He is a 
254 



On the Llanos 

nephew of Alvarado, and, owing in a large 
measure to his business capacity, has 
assumed the management of his ranch 
also. He receives by the hand of friends 
passing from Bolivar the French medical 
journals and the Caracas " Heraldo." 
Medicine he practises to some extent still, 
but mostly on the farm animals, which 
assuredly need it. 

We go out to look at a small herd of 
horses that his peons have driven in from 
the savanna. Carlos brings along a bottle 
of some brown creosote tincture. Horse 
after horse has to be treated in the ears 
and groin for "garrapata," little ticks 
which fatten on blood, swell to a full 
quarter of an inch or more, and burst, 
distributing a numberless progeny which 
have grown within their body. A colt 
has some bone disease that prevents it 
from rising to its feet. One mare has a 
cancer which the Doctor has unsuccessfully 
operated upon. Others have raw sores 

255 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

here and there. Truly the cattleman's life 
in Venezuela is not easy. 

The River Carapo is a mile away from 
the house. A swim is suggested by 
Carlos. Our steeds are saddled and 
brought around, and we ride down to a 
gap in the thickets which line the river, 
where a gravel beach stretches just below 
a deep pool. 

" There are no crocodiles here, but some- 
times we get electric eels," you are told. 

The sport is so refreshing that the after- 
noon passes all too soon. 

As the shadows are lengthening, you 
ride back to the house among the mango- 
trees, as cool and comfortable as if you 
were on the plains of the Dakotas rather 
than nine degrees north of the Equator. 
Indeed, it would seem that the heat of the 
Tropics is by no means the terror it is 
pictured. Unless one is in a hot and 
stuffy room, or on a pitch lake, or in a 
city where the buildings absorb heat, he is 
256 



On the Llanos 

comfortable everywhere save under the 
direct rays of the sun. And at no time 
do you find it worse than some of the 
bad days in New York. The Torrid differs 
from the Temperate Zone not so much in 
having a greater extreme of heat, as in 
having warm weather all the year round. 
The nights are cool, and here at San Jose 
the woollen covija is needed always before 
morning. 

The household at Alvarado's rises at 
dawn. The milking of the cows is the 
first duty. A chorus comes from them 
and their calves in the mists of the early 
day. The sound is like the groaning of 
a great suffering host. 

"Comme le champs de bataille de Wa- 
gram, dans la derniere acte de l'Aiglon," 
Velazquez expresses it. The calves are 
kept in one pen, the cows in another. 
As each cow's turn comes to be milked her 
calf is let join her for a moment, then it 
is pulled away by main strength and held 
s 257 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

until the milking is accomplished. These 
animals are the descendants of the cattle 
brought over by the Spaniards at the time 
of the Conquest. Almost no new blood 
has been brought in since, and as no care 
has been taken in breeding, here, where 
the grass is not particularly good, the 
cows are rangy and thin, and give but 
little milk. 

A wild bull is to be slaughtered in your 
honour for fresh meat. Early in the 
morning, after he has been driven near 
the house and cornered, a peon has ridden 
up with the raw-hide lasso fast to the 
horse's tail and has caught the victim. 
He stands now lashed to a tree by the 
many turns of the raw hide around his 
horns. A savage look is in his eyes. 

At about ten o'clock a keen - eyed, 
leather-skinned vaquero lassos the bull's 
front feet and throws him. Then Dr. 
Velazquez with one dexterous stab cuts 
an artery in the throat. The ill - omened 
258 



On the Llanos 

buzzards sit in the trees around and coldly 
wait. Without staining his white suit the 
Doctor flays the head and one leg, then 
leaves the rest to the vaquero and a young 
Indian. The ribs are slashed away and 
roasted on the end of a spit over a slow 
fire for our dinner. The rest of the flesh 
is cut into strips a half-inch thick and 
hung on a rack to cure in the hot sun. 
This makes the tough desiccated beef one 
gets throughout this country. 

Everything we eat at San Jose is raised 
on the ranch or near by — coffee, sugar, 
cassava bread, milk, meat, beans, mangoes, 
papoi, bananas, plantains, tobacco. It is 
wonderful what a small area of ground 
will supply an abundance of food. Accord- 
ing to Von Humboldt, one acre of bananas 
will feed twenty times as many as will 
an acre of wheat, and bananas go on 
bearing year after year without cultivation. 

Nature here is very close at hand. 
Every morning you shake out your shoes 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

lest a scorpion has nested there. Once you 
find beside them a poisonous lizard, lar- 
garaba. The domestic animals are under 
your very feet. Bats fly around in the 
house and hang from the thatch. Rats 
run about under the end room where the 
stores of rice and beans and the Doctor's 
medicine chests are kept. Parrots and 
blackbirds swarm in the trees outside, 
and here nest the little birds that give 
warning of serpents. 

Near the house is a hill of those 
strangely civilized communities, the para- 
sol ants. For 200 feet you trace their 
line of march, one rank going to the 
nest carrying fragments of leaves, which 
fall back over their bodies as if the 
creatures were shading themselves from 
the sun. These colonies have been com- 
pared to Sir Thomas Mores " Utopia," 
or to the ideal socialism. All work in the 
hill-hive — the big ants, nearly half an inch 
long, provided with formidable jaws, and 
260 



On the Llanos 

the little ones, no bigger than gnats. Each 
carries the burden it can bear. All are 
nourished by the fungus which grows 
upon the masticated leaves planted inside 
the nest. But the individual is nothing. 
The wounded ones are let struggle where 
they lie, the procession going on past and 
over them indifferently. Toil, not life, is 
the goal of the hill-hive, and the toil never 
stops. 

A hunting-party is arranged to start in 
the afternoon of the second day and camp 
near a group of hills on the edge of the 
savanna. Two ancient Winchesters are 
at the casa, and Velazquez has a 38- 
calibre revolver. A machete for the peon 
who will accompany us completes the 
outfit. 

We ride off to the eastward with a pack 
of seven " peros tigreros " trotting behind. 
Nominally these dogs are for hunting 
jaguar. Actually, they will chase nearly 
anything. An hour before we start they 

261 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

kill at the foot of the banana plantation 
a rabbit, which is promptly consigned to 
the family larder. 

The pack is a curiously mixed one ; 
three dogs are of the true "tigrero" type, 
brindled grey with slanting eyes. But 
the best dog is a black, El Negro, with 
no class at all in his looks and one ear 
chewed off. There are two white and 
grey " pintos " and one brown brute, small 
and long like a dachshund, with hanging 
bloodhound ears. The pintos are just 
puppies, and ever and anon they get stuck 
on thorns and make the forest ring with 
their woes. 

About two hours of riding from the 
casa brings us to a grove of chapparal 
at the foot of a rocky thicket-grown hill. 
A pool of water girded with palm-trees 
is alongside. We decide to camp here. 
The mules are picketed in some good 
grazing ground. While the peon gathers 
wood for a fire, including a reserve supply, 
262 



On the Llanos 

which he carefully covers with palm 
fronds against a rain which seems immi- 
nent, we stretch our hammocks between 
the trees. The mosquito bar, which has 
not been unfolded so far, is now opened 
out and drawn into place. As a protec- 
tion against the shower, a rope is stretched 
above the net, and over this is laid the 
thick covija, which makes a miniature tent 
over the hammock. 

There is no danger from jaguar in the 
night, surrounded as we are by dogs and 
with the fire burning. But there is a 
chance that a bull may come along the 
cattle-path and give your hammock a 
poke for good luck. This is one of the 
risks, however. 

Having fished up water by means of a 
horn at the end of a string, an equipment 
which both Velazquez and the peon carry 
in their saddle pockets, we soon make a 
meal of coffee, cassava, and cheese. The 
coffee-grounds are later allowed to drain 

263 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

for an hour or so, and just before going 
to bed we have the second brew, called 
guarapo. The original brew was cafe. 

It is a warm, moist night, whose deep 
encircling shadows seem full of murmur- 
ings and of whispers. Between the high 
trees above are spaces of dense blackness. 
An odour of earth, of grasses, a scent of 
woods and of dead branches, is in the 
air. Above are the fitful stars, and though 
no breeze stirs, you feel around you the 
vague palpitation of this ocean of leaves. 
You feel lost, at bay, surrounded with 
dangers under this living mystery a- 
tremble everywhere. You fall asleep to 
this deep throb of the jungle. 

In the morning we discuss the plan 
of campaign. " Venedo 6 tigre — deer or 
jaguar ? " is the first question. All votes 
are counted for jaguar. 

" Now," says Velazquez, "there are two 
ways of hunting tigre. One is safe and 
easy, but it is hard to find him by it. 
264 



On the Llanos 

The other is very difficult and dangerous, 
but if there are any tigres you get them. 
The first method is to ride around the 
savanna with dogs and try to run on 
a trail The dogs chase the tigre up 
a tree, and you station yourself about 
10 feet away and shoot it in the eye. The 
second way is to go into the montana to 
their dens. If jaguars are in the neigh- 
bourhood they will be there. You build 
a fire and stand in front of the hole. 
They come out on the jump and you have 
to shoot quick. " Esta los llanos" — he 
points to the level savanna, "y esa el 
monte" he points to the jungle-covered 
hill above. 

We enter the montana. The peon, 
machete in hand, leads the way to cut 
the vines and creepers where they are 
impassable. In a few minutes you are 
fighting your way up the hill through the 
worst jungle you have ever had to face, 
bar none. 

265 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

The Venezuelans have a special word 
for these tangled forests of trees and 
creepers, " los bejucales." Here and there 
are trees with long needles like thorns 
which break off in the flesh. On the 
climb you grasp branches whose upper 
surface is fitted with row on row of jagged 
triangular teeth like a shark's, so that 
even a monkey cannot climb them. Sabre 
cacti, with hook-shaped thorns along the 
edge and a fine point, grapple and pierce 
your clothes. Others which you brush 
into are four-sided, standing upright with 
sprays of needles at the angles. On the 
rocks grow still others like gigantic 
thistles, white on top with a little red 
flower. Vines sweep down from the tree- 
tops and overhanging rocks. They are 
so many entangling ropes with which 
you struggle like some labouring Gulliver 
while tearing your hands upon the fish- 
hook and thorn attachments. Clumps 
of young bamboo add their stubborn 
266 



On the Llanos 

spines to the rest. You set your teeth 
hard, breast the savage resistance, and 
press forward. 

Boulders line the way ; between them 
you must pick a precarious way as best 
you can. Now and again your feet stub 
against a rock, and being entangled, you 
fall forward, clutching desperately at all 
in reach. In places the ground is so 
steep that you must climb on hands and 
knees, The dogs will not stir from the 
path you make to hunt these thickets, 
but follow cringing, with bleeding paws, 
whining as the thorns pierce them. Once, 
fortunately in a more open place, the 
guide gives a cry and runs a score of 
yards. Before you can understand the 
reason, four hornets have stung you on 
forehead and temple. A cascabel (rattle- 
snake) is sighted by the peon, but disap- 
pears quickly into the brush. Woodticks, 
(garrapatas) are on your arms and neck, 
burrowing in. The sweat pours down 

267 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

your forehead, and the thick khaki of 
your suit is drenched with it. 

At last we see a cavern under a great 
rock. "Tigre," whispers the peon. Guns 
ready, we tiptoe up. The peon pokes 
tenderly with a long stick. We are braced 
to receive a jaguar coming out at a 
spring. Our emotion is wasted, however. 
The dogs come and sniff: nothing is in 
the den. 

We move along the base of the cliff, 
poking into all the dens we find. It is 
heart-breaking work. The peon is fear- 
lessly brave — "guapo." He goes up to 
every hole and pokes in it with a stick, 
as well as leading the way through the 
brush. He is a silent, thin-faced, sinewy 
vaquero, of the cowboy breed with 
whom Bolivar beat the Spaniards. We 
accomplish nothing. We poke into holes 
for two days, riding across the savanna 
from mountain to mountain. Several 
turtles with orange spots on their backs, 
268 



On the Llanos 

called morocoi, and an armadillo, called 
caracol, are all we get. 

Once we see the zamuro wheeling about 
in the distance, and ride a couple of miles 
to see if a jaguar has killed something 
there. A hundred buzzards, black, re- 
pulsive, are around a cow. We examine 
her, but there is not a wound. Her eyes 
only have been pecked out as the first 
tit-bits by a white and black royal vulture, 
on whose pleasure the rest wait. 

" Une veille vache morte d'amour," says 
Velazquez disgustedly. 

The peon cuts a piece of the cow's leg 
for the dogs, which shamelessly gnaw the 
flesh, for with raw meat they are fed 
without scruple. 

The vaquero decides finally that the 
tigres must be in the deep woods, rather 
than here in the neighbourhood of the 
cattle-ranges which they usually haunt. 

On the third day out we camp for lunch, 
in the midst of which a rain comes on. 

269 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

For two hours it pours in torrents. Every- 
thing we have is wet through. A gourd 
which was left standing to catch the coffee 
drippings is full to the brim. The dogs 
whimper and move uneasily from place 
to place. El Negro, knowing that his 
hunting ability entitles him to special 
privilege, comes and curls up with us 
under a dripping covija. 

The afternoon sun dries us out. We 
sight a herd of deer in a thicket and 
bag two. Then the dogs start something 
which we run down and find to be an 
ant-bear. It has taken to the limb of a 
little tree. It is striking at El Negro 
with its curved claws, and is hissing 
so virulently with its ridiculously small 
mouth, shaped like a horse's, that the 
dogs do not dare go near it. We add 
it to our bag. 

Farther on, just as we have picked our 
way across the boulder-strewn bed of a 
branch of the Carapo, the dogs start a 
270 



On the Llanos 

fox, and are off in full cry back across 
the river. There is a beautiful burst for 
a mile or more, in which the fox doubles 
back and is killed a hundred yards from 
where he started. El Negro is first at 
the death, and we keep the tail in 
souvenir. 

We take a trip to the land of " The 
Lame Sefior," and add a grey-eyed, red- 
moustached mestizo and a piratical-looking 
Indian, with a great hooked machete, to 
the guides force, bagging another deer on 
this land. We sleep on the seizors porch 
while the Indian strums his guitar and 
the mestizo improvises to the rattle of 
the maracas gourds a song about a mighty 
hunting. 

At length, after a week of it, we turn 
our mules back towards San Jos6, and 
come trailing in about dusk, the mules 
spent with fatigue and the dogs straggling 
home in single file behind us. 

After a good night's rest we are ready 

271 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

for the next interest. Dr. Velazquez goes 
with you to the woods by the river, to point 
out some medicinal plants that are in local 
repute. On the way he points out the 
arestin, that curious sensitive-plant whose 
leaves close as one touches it. 

After some scrambling along the valley 
bottom he points out the Cruseta real, 
a tree with light-brown bark, an infusion 
of which has the same effect as quinine. 
In Venezuela they gather the bark, boil 
it, and swallow 40 drops of the liquid 
per day. Many people who cannot take 
quinine, which makes them spotted, use 
this Cruseta real for fever. Dr. Velaz- 
quez believes that the tree is not the 
Bonplandia trifoliata, brewed by the old 
monks of Angostura, which Von Hum- 
boldt noted in 1799 as being good for 
fever, but another and unknown species. 

The mora, which is like the balata, gives, 
when its bark is tapped, a milk which is 
antiseptic and good for ulcers. This is 
272 



On the Llanos 

applied externally, sometimes diluted with 
water. 

The yagrumo root is soaked in water 
and drunk. For hemorrhages the bark 
is scraped and put onto the wound. 

The courtesy of the Alvarado household 
is exquisite. They notice that you like the 
fresh milk, and without a word of comment, 
despite the small quantity secured from 
the reluctant cows, two glasses are at your 
place every meal. Senora Alvarado sends 
a peon to a neighbour 10 miles away to get 
a loaf of a creamy sugar, like maple sugar, 
called alfondoque, for you to sample. Carlos 
sees that your heavy riding-boots are un- 
comfortable for use around the house, and 
gets you a pair of light alpargatas. Every- 
body in the family joins in to help polish 
up your raw and meagre Spanish. 

Having spent ten days at San Jose, 

you plan now to return to Bolivar. You 

square up indebtedness as well as may be 

by giving Velazquez a pair of binoculars, 

t 273 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Alvarado a watch, and Carlos a camera 
and the muchacha a silver penknife. Your 
hosts supply you with provisions, delegate 
a peon as escort, and with affectionate 
farewells start you on your outward way. 

Four days, after some detours and halts 
for shooting, bring you nearly to Bolivar. 
A six hours' forced night-march enables 
you to reach Mannoni's in time to take 
a shower-bath and sit down to breakfast 
with the rest. 

" No, I believe that freemasonry is 
anti-Christian," M. Mattey is saying as 
you enter. 

" On the contrary, it is of the greatest 
possible benefit to society at large," 
retorts M. Vicentini. 



274 



VII 
THE " DELTA" 

THE " Delta" is scheduled to sail for 
-*■ Port of Spain in five days. There 
may be a delay, because the " Apure " 
has got stuck on a sandbank near 
Pedernales, and if her signals are seen, 
the " Delta" must steam over and pull 
her off. 

You go around and make your fare- 
wells to the Presidente, giving him a 
Thermos bottle to keep his coffee hot 
overnight and receiving a photograph 
in remembrance. You take leave of 
Santos Palazzi, getting presented with a 
tiger-dog and a jaguar skin, and leaving 
your rifle as a partial reciprocation. 
Dr. Sartos gives you a covija. It is 

275 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

really embarrassing to know how -to get 
square with all these kindly people. 

You go down with Wadsworth to see 
how his engine has progressed. Every- 
thing is ready for the assembling, and 
the work will be done on schedule 
time. Wadsworth is pleased as Punch, 
and turns over the engines to show 
you how well they function. The 
Commandante goes for another dove- 
hunt with you, and this time some 
cranes and a young alligator are added 
to the bag. 

You prepare for departure by getting 
out custom papers, or rather Santos 
Palazzi gets them out for you and 
General Navarro rushes them through. 
The papers are a relic of the time 
when almost everything paid an export 
duty, as gold still does. There comes 
at the last a hitch, or at least a halt, 
in getting the baggage on board the 
boat, because the " Delta," just when the 
276 



The "Delta" 

passengers are expecting to have their 
possessions embarked, goes over to Sole- 
dad to load cattle and returns only an 
hour before sailing-time. Charlie, whom 
Fitzgerald has left here with his launch, 
mounts guard lest the boat slip off 
without one passenger or his luggage. 

At length the " Delta" reappears from 
across the river and toots her whistle. 
Most of the townsfolk have come to 
watch her off. They stream down across 
the naked earthen bank of the river 
to the water-line. Friends are out 
in force to speed the parting guests. 
M. Mattey is escorting his Cuban 
confrere, who leaves by this boat. 
Senor Aquatella has a large shipment of 
balata. The American Consul is anxious 
to get some cigars sent up from Trini- 
dad, and has to commission the Scotch 
engineer to bring them for him. 

The gang-plank is soon thrown 
across, and porters in a line, like para- 

277 



I 

/ 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

sol ants, are passing in with bundles 
and trunks on heads, and coming out 
at the low entrance below-stairs. 
Covijas and saddlebags, owned by the 
swarthy Venezuelans bound for San 
Felix are heaped in one corner of the 
deck. Cedar chests, palm-fibre baskets, 
and bundles of many kinds are on 
their way 'tween decks, where a large 
family of Trinidad negroes have camped. 
Five porters carry the cumbersome 
equipment of the English tourist — 
saddle, top-hat-case and all — to the cabin 
indicated by the buxom Trinidad negress 
who is stewardess, and seems to manage 
all the men. 

The deck is a hubbub of porters and 
passengers of every shade and complexion. 
Some are embracing each other. Some 
are talking excitedly. More are looking 
on stolidly. A crowd are opening cham- 
pagne at the ship's bar in honour of a 
German merchant who is retiring for 
278 



The "Delta" 

good and leaving Venezuela — one Herr 
Miiller. An American who has been up 
country getting hold of a balata property, 
and has various shadowy concessions of 
problematical worth which he is taking 
to New York to realize upon, smokes a 
big Havana in company with a swarthy 
cattle-rancher from the llanos near Apure. 
The dark-skinned Jefe Civil of San Felix, 
Senor Pablo Garcia, is on the deck, stand- 
ing stiffly up and ceremoniously saluting 
his friends, while beside him his private 
secretary, in civilian clothes and pointed 
yellow shoes, sabre on thigh and Win- 
chester in hand, listlessly smokes a 
cigarillo. 

A warning toot and the shore-bound 
element makes precipitate descent to the 
gang-plank. They stand upon the dock 
and begin the hand and handkerchief 
waving sacred to all boat-leaving. A 
third whistle and the vessel starts on 
the wide sweep which will face it down 

279 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

stream. The German band on shore 
plays wheezingly " Gloria al Pueblo 
Venezolano," and with the white flannels 
still waving us their " bon voyage," we 
start down with the current, the City 
of Bolivar dropping farther and farther 
behind, its cathedral and the old Spanish 
fort fading last from our lingering vision. 

The English tourist is first to break 
the retrospective charm. He is grumbling 
his troubles into the ear of a fellow-country- 
man who has been manager for an English 
syndicate interested in a mining concession 
near Callao. 

" Do you know what I had to do to 
get out of this beastly country with my 
luggage? I had to buy a stamped piece 
of paper at the Custom House, cost 50 
centimes. The inventory had to be made 
out in a certain form, they told me, but 
no form was printed on the stamped paper. 
A young chap at the Custom House 
said he would make out my list for 
280 



The " Delta " 

5 bolivars. But I wouldn't pay such a 
sum, so I went back to the hotel and had 
the schedule made out there. Then I had 
to go to a hat-store which had the stamp- 
selling concession and buy a one-bolivar 
stamp. I took this to the Custom House, 
and one man pressed a rubber marker 
on the paper and another signed it. I 
knew intuitively that the stamp should 
have been cancelled and I pointed this out. 
The second official said I was right, they 
had happened to miss it. He opened a 
penknife and stabbed the stamp. Then 
I took the document to still another place, 
and the Commandante stamped it anew 
and wrote his name upon it." 

In one corner of the deck the Jefe 
Civil is talking to the Commandante of 
San Felix, the jovial banjo-player who 
went on the excursion with you to the 
Falls of the Caroni. They are discussing 
a murder which has taken place recently 
near their bailiwick. It was all on 

281 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

account of a stolen pig. A small farmer 
had some goats lifted and went to law 
about the matter, but the thief had been 
acquitted. When, subsequently, a pig also 
disappeared, he took the law into his own 
hands, and on the report of his little 
daughter, loaded his shotgun with a 
couple of slugs, lay in wait for his 
enemy, and killed him. 

" Too many thieves go unpunished," 
says the Commandante. " I think the 
man should be let off." 

The Jefe Civil, who will be the judge 
unless overruled by the Presidente at 
Bolivar, is discreetly silent. 

" It was curious how I captured that 
murderer," says the Commandante. " My 
mule smelled the dead man's blood as I 
passed the body, and next day, seeing the 
farmer go into the bushes, rather than 
come up and speak to me as I went by, 
raised my suspicion. I noticed it was 
near where the body was found." 
282 



The " Delta " 

The forest is waving beside the broad, 
quiet river, by which one can penetrate 
three thousand miles into the interior. 
The vessel is gliding quickly down 
stream. On the lower deck the thickly- 
packed cattle stamp and low. A negro 
somewhere is strumming a guitar. All 
sit down to dinner at a long table. The 
English engineer is at your right and 
the retired German merchant and a negro 
balata trader at your left. 

The latter has secured an enormous 
concession on rubber-trees in the interior 
of Paragua, and, though he has made a 
fortune at the business, has gotten more 
now than he can handle. He is going 
to London to try and make a company 
to take over his property. 

There is no discrimination at this 
festive board as to race, or colour, or 
previous condition of servitude. Only 
one per cent, of the Venezuelan people are 
recorded as pure white, and in the most 

283 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

aristocratic circles the black of Africa is 
mixed with the blue of Castile. The 
most common mixture is white and 
Indian, of which two-thirds of the in- 
habitants, the mestizo, are composed. 
Mulattos are fairly common, and Zambos, 
negro and Indian half-breeds, less so. 
There is every possible permutation of 
these race mixtures. 

The English engineer between the 
courses tells the tale of the Callao Mine. 

" About i860 some Yankees from Cali- 
fornia came here and began to pan gold. 
They founded the Callao Mine, and a 
French company was organized and 
bought it. After a few years' work the 
company became insolvent, and, to eke 
along, paid tradesmen script redeemable 
in shares. A thousand pesos' worth of 
shares would be bought then for 50 pesos. 
The great vein was struck shortly after, 
and for years shares of 1,000 pesos pro- 
duced 72,000 pesos. One Trinidad negro 
284 



The "Delta 



95 



boatman, who kept a cookshop, sold a 
few shares given him for a board bill. 
He is to-day one of the rich men of 
Trinidad. 

" In 1895 the main lode was lost. No 
reserve of money had been kept to explore 
with, and the company went permanently 
bankrupt." 

The German trader, Herr Mliller, who 
is going back to the old country to finish 
his days in quiet, has been for twenty 
years in Bolivar, starting as clerk with 
Blohm & Cie. He has studied the 
trade of the country with characteristic 
German thoroughness. 

" Venezuela is a country enormously 
rich, principally in coffee, cocoa, balata, 
rubber, hides, and cattle. Even now the 
balance of trade is in her favour — eighty 
million dollars of exports to fifty millions 
of imports. Guiana has a population of 
only fifty thousand — two to the square 
mile — over an area as large as the British 

285 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

Isles. These countries are nothing to 
what they could be. The llanos will 
support a hundred times more cattle if 
only they are bred instead of neglected. 
Our neighbour speaks of the Callao. 
There are other mines just as rich if 
people had the capital to work them." 

We adjourn to a corner of the deck 
and light up some Havana cigarettes. 
The owner of the cattle on the lower 
deck, who is taking them to Trinidad 
for sale, joins us. The German puts to 
him the problem of stocking the llanos. 

" You talk about breeding better cattle," 
he says. " I know all about that busi- 
ness, but what good does it do me if I 
import bulls and make an enclosure and 
breed good cattle ? They are the first ones 
that will be shot by the next revolution. 
If the cattle range wild it is harder to steal 
them. But even thus the insurrectos got 
away with three hundred head from my 
estate last time. 
286 



The "Delta" 

" And such ridiculous laws ! " he con- 
tinues. " There is one that you must 
not kill a cow. How many cows have 
infectious diseases and should be killed? 
There's another law that barbed - wire 
fences should have seven wires. Don't I 
know how many wires my fences should 
have as well as those crooked lawyers 
in Caracas ? " 

"And how can foreign capital come 
into this country and open up the mines ? " 
chimes in the engineer. "You ought to 
see our costs. A hundred and fifty dollars 
a ton to transport goods 60 miles ! To 
get out of the country I have to secure a 
permit in San Felix and one in Bolivar 
too. The negroes down the river have to 
hand out graft for every time they move. 
Why, the carters to the Callao Mine have 
to pay 120 pesos a year, a tax greater 
than the largest sized motor-car pays in 
England. All our supplies have to go up 
to Bolivar first and then be brought back 

287 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

to the mine. A narrow-gauge railway 
from San Felix would open out the 
country. Will they allow it ? No. Fifteen 
years ago a route was planned and marked 
on Guzman Blanco's map as ' under 
construction.' They say the railroad must 
start from Bolivar. 

11 And graft, graft ! " he continues. 
" Mining machinery is free of duty by the 
Code, which is ideal on paper. But you 
have to pay the Customs first and then get 
the money back. A miner up here a while 
ago paid four hundred dollars in duties, 
and before he got it back he had expended 
one hundred dollars for stamps and fees. 
Why, up at Callao we send telegrams 
instead of letters, because the dispatch 
fees go to the salary of the local Comman- 
dante, and he has to be taken care of. It 
is all right so long as you spend money 
in Venezuela, but God help you if you 
make any ! " 

" But this Government is all right," 
288 



The "Delta 



9? 



protests the American promoter ; " it is 
safe to invest here now. Of course, the 
officials get their little pickings for their 
trouble, but since Venezuela was made to 
give up all that money after the Hague 
decision, a foreigner's property is safe- 
Since Gomez has become President trade 
has increased 15 per cent." 

" That is because it was nothing during 
Matos's Revolution and Castro's troubles," 
interrupts the German. " But those 
indemnities hit pretty hard, it is true. The 
whole Customs receipts are less than four 
million dollars, and nearly two and a 
half millions go to the indemnities and the 
foreign debts." 

"They will not let capital be brought 
in either," grumbles the English traveller. 
'* I had an idea there might be openings 
here for manufacturing, and I looked the 
situation over. Matches you buy in 
Venezuela for 20 cents a dozen boxes, 
of far worse quality than those in Trinidad, 
u 289 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

and the boxes are not full. At Trinidad 
they cost 10 cents, and that is dear enough. 
But can you start a factory here ? Not 
much ! because a distinguished official in 
Caracas owns stock in the match factory 
which makes these fosforos, whose heads 
fly off and burn your clothes. Salt sells 
at Bolivar with the largest official discount, 
which, by the way, you do not get, for a 
cent and a fifth a pound. At Cura^oa it 
is quoted at three-tenths of a cent. But 
can you sell salt ? Not much ! It is a 
Government monopoly. The distinguished 
official in Caracas owns three-fourths of 
the stock in this steamer company, which 
has the concession for selling salt. And 
this Compania Fluvial has the sole right 
to navigate the Macareo passage. Any 
competing line has to go up the Pedernales 
passage and spend twelve hours longer 
getting to Bolivar, if, indeed, it does not 
run onto the bar and stick there like the 
< Apure.' " 

290 



The "Delta" 

The cattle merchant chimes in: "We 
want a man like Diaz." He shakes his 
fist, "With a sword!" 

The American promoter protests : — 

"We do not want a machetero ; we 
want an administrator who will ally 
himself with capital. The Government 
would become good if capital came in and 
people had work. There are too many 
guapos, too many bravosT 

" But how can it come?" interrupts the 
Englishman. "Will the distinguished 
gentleman in Caracas give up his salt 
concession and the matches or the cigar- 
ettes, or the Orinoco Navigation Company, 
or the Maracaibo steamers ? Where can 
capital go? When it enters, the Govern- 
ment or the revolution runs off with it. 
You have a mine with four hundred men. 
The Presidente sends word : ' There is 
danger of a revolution ; I must have those 
men for my army.' What can you do ? " 

The promoter is bellicose. 

291 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

"If I had a railroad with two thousand 
four hundred men I would arm them and 
fight anybody who tried to take them 
away, Government or revolution. The 
Asphalt Company at Pitch Lake has its 
men armed and does that." 

" But they got their property taken away 
after they had spent two hundred thousand 
dollars to help Matos beat Castro," com- 
ments the mine manager. 

"Well," says the promoter, " did not 
Castro have a reason to take their lake 
away? They stole it in the first place, 
anyway. I know, because I took part in 
the revolution and we had great sums of 
money. A British war-vessel stopped me, 
but when the officer saw my papers he 
let me through ; Castro took the steamer 
line away from the Americans, too. They 
gave twenty-five thousand dollars to the 
revolution. The Yankees would have 
been all right if they had left politics 
alone." 
292 



The "Delta" 

The German grows placative : "This 
Government is not so very bad. It 
wouldn't be, that is, if only the distin- 
guished official you mention was not so 
interested in cattle. He will be in an 
important conference with foreign repre- 
sentatives, when a servant comes and 
says, ' The old cow has had a calf.' Up 
he jumps, and says, ' Excuse me,' and does 
not come back for three days. He is just 
a cattle-man." 

" That is what the Venezuelan people 
like," says the ranchman. "Well, I hear 
up Apure way there may be trouble any 
minute." He lowers his voice mysteri- 
ously : "The Old One is in Colombia, it 
is said." 

11 Pish ! " says the promoter ; " he is all 
eaten up]with tumours and is in the Canary 
Islands." 

"Well," says the cattle man, "I have 
been told by our agent in Trinidad to 
keep my eyes and ears wide open." 

293 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" There is another," adds the promoter. 

"The lame one?" 

"Yes, the lame senor. The most 
popular man in Venezuela. I have heard 
from the inside that he is to be Presi- 
dent when there is the next trouble. 
There will be an intervention by the 
United States and an entirely free elec- 
tion, with inspectors, and he will be 
elected, and he is an absolutely honest 
and patriotic man. Twice before he 
could have been President, by treachery, 
and he would not. I should like to 
see the Presidente of the State of Bolivar 
go higher. He is most diplomatic. He 
says, ' The roads are my monument.' ' 

11 He made Gomez President," adds 
the German. "You know Castro was 
away in Paris, and he sent word to the 
Cabinet to proclaim that the country 
needed his return. One of the Ministers 
offered this motion. Then the General 
stood up and said, ' Is Castro to treat us 
294 



The "Delta" 

as children who cannot run the country?' 
And Perez said the same. So Castro was 
not recalled. But General Telleria took 
ship next day to the United States and 
stayed there two years. He is a good 
man." 

" We have another revolution coming 
soon, anyway," says the cattle-man. " One 
trouble in the country is we have too 
many officials, and they change always. 
Of course, it is necessary to reward those 
who have fought well, so what else can 
be done ? I have seen revolutions start. 
Somebody who has been driven out, or 
who has influence in some State, will get 
together a thousand or so brave fighters 
— guapos. Other men in the district, rest- 
less, or with a grudge, send in to him 
and say : ' I control three hundred men. 
They are yours if I can be Custom House 
collector of San Felix,' or, ' I have a 
hundred ; I would be Prefect of Police of 
Barcelona.' The leader is glad to get 

295 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

allies and pledges the posts. These pro- 
spective officials promise smaller places 
and rewards to their men, and thus the 
army is made. To foreigners the leader 
generally promises concessions and so 
gets money. With a force and some 
cash he marches to the capital. Matos 
had sixteen thousand men against 
Castro's six thousand. I was with Castro 
that day in the steeple of the Church of 
Ascencion. Matos' men none of them 
wanted to die. Castro said that morning, 
1 I win,' and his regular soldiers went 
through the insurgents like a mad bull. 

" When a revolting general wins, as 
Castro did before he came into the Presi- 
dency, he marches to Caracas with his 
army from the backwoods, and meets a 
crowd of thievish lawyers, w r ho have been 
Ministers, and know the ways of graft 
and of the Government. When the vic- 
torious general is made Acting President, 
they adroitly get into the new Ministry, 
296 



The " Delta " 

and show him how to conduct a pretended 
election before declaring himself ' Presi- 
dente Constitucional.' Now the time 
comes for the redemption of promises to 
his henchmen. 

" Some of the chiefs get their appoint- 
ments ; and at once their enemies flee to 
Trinidad to escape alive. The new 
officials take their goods. The men 
driven out are crazily angry and des- 
perate, and ready to join the next revo- 
lution. 

"The slick lawyers get to the new 
President, and say such and such a one 
is not fit to be Commandante of the pro- 
mised port. * He is a good fighter,' they 
allow, * a guapo, but he is a rough neck. 
He cannot fill that job — put in such an- 
other/ So the President tells his officer 
who had the pledge to wait a little while, 
or he appoints some one and says it is 
only temporary, or he offers something 
else. So the man waits and waits, getting 

297 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

angrier and angrier, and his lieutenants 
call on him to fulfil his own promises, 
which he cannot do. Finally he goes 
home with a burning heart, ripe also for 
the next revolution. The President seizes 
all the concessions and monopolies he can, 
to hire his own soldiers and keep him- 
self President. So it goes. 

"The country needs a new Diaz," he 
concludes. " Old General Guzman Blanco 
was like Diaz. Truly he was ridiculous 
with the statues he built to himself, 
plastered over with the title of ' El 
Illustre Americano.' Yet he allowed no- 
body to steal but himself, and the country 
was the most prosperous it has ever been." 

The Jefe Civil is near and seems to be 
listening. 

"Tenga ciudado," whispers the pro- 
moter. The conversation stops abruptly. 

"Those trees along the bank are very 
beautiful," says the cattle-man. 

The scene along the river really is 
298 



The "Delta 



15 



magnificent. The water-rushes rise like 
a lawn from the water's edge. Behind is 
tall grass several feet high, then stretches 
the irregular line of the trees. 

The Englishman does not care who 
hears him. "Say what you please," he 
proclaims, "on one side of a ten-mile 
strait is a province as large as Prussia 
lavishly rich in untouched natural resources, 
without a mile of railway, without a decent 
road, without industries or anything but 
the most elementary agriculture, supporting 
a poverty-stricken population of less than 
sixty thousand. On the other side of the 
channel is a little island fifty miles square 
with railroads, trolleys, factories, oil-fields, 
roads like boulevards, supporting in peace 
and prosperity two hundred and eighty 
thousand people. The Flag means thus 
much, anyway." 

" Give Venezuela a fair chance," protests 
the American, " Guiana will come out all 
right yet." 

299 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

" You can make money here, anyway," 
says the German in a conspicuously loud 
voice. "The English have nothing to 
complain of, if they don't ship through 
Trinidad and have to pay the 30 per cent, 
surtax. They sold three million dollars' 
worth of manufactures, goods, and cottons, 
to Venezuela, and the Germans sold two 
millions only ; the United States lose out 
here. They send nothing but wheat, 
patent medicines, and a lot of catalogues 
which nobody reads. They have not sense 
enough to send commercial travellers 
speaking Spanish down with samples. 
But the States buy most of the exports 
and send gold coin back." 

In the evening we see the lights of San 
Felix, and the Jefe Civil and the Com- 
mandante are rowed ashore. Later we 
reach Barrancas, and take on board a 
dark-coloured family consisting of a 
bearded local magnate, his wife, and three 
senoritas. 
300 



The "Delta" 

You go to bed to the sound of the 
thrashing of the stern paddles and wake 
to the cry of the parrots screeching in 
the jungle alongside. The vessel ploughs 
northward through the morning mist. 
You stroll around the decks, watching for 
monkeys in the trees upon the bank. 

One of the senoritas, aided and abetted 
by her sister, seems to be having an in- 
cipient flirtation with a young Venezuelan. 
You pick up on the deck, fortuitously, a 
piece of paper evidently intended for him. 
On it is written in a delicate feminine 
hand : — 

"Senor X. i. Esperame. 2. Me esperas? 
3. Esperame pronto." 

You slip it to the Venezuelan, who 
is properly grateful, though a little per- 
plexed at the selection of yourself as 
intermediary. 

The mangrove-trees of the Delta mouth 
appear now, pierced by an occasional 
narrow cafio, and here and there, rarely, 

301 



The Path of the Conquistadores 

the thatch of a Guarano Indian's hut. 
The choppy water of the mouth of the 
Macareo passage is passed. The man- 
grove coast slowly fades away. We pass 
the Soldado rock with its menacing line of 
breakers and enter the Serpent's Mouth 
— of sinister memories both. The hills 
of Trinidad appear soon. They are clearly 
defined, with the regularly laid out coco- 
nut trees of the plantations at their feet. 
White houses peep out between the palms. 
Just as the sun is sinking over the distant 
hills, we cast anchor in Port of Spain close 
beside the Royal Dutch West India Mail 
Steamer bound to-morrow for New York. 



302 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, takes Trinidad for England 24 
Aigrette — gathering plumes in Venezuela . . .168 
Angostura = " The Narrows." See Ciudad Bolivar. 
Congress of Angostura frames Constitution for 

Greater Columbia 43 

Asphalt Lake — 

In Trinidad 93 

At Pedernales entrance of Orinoco . . . 140 
In Venezuela 292 

Berrio, Don Antonio de 15 

Expeditions seeking El Dorado . . .16 

Captured by Raleigh 18 

Dies of disappointment 18 

Bolivar, Simon — 

Appearance . 26 

Early life 28 

" El Libertador " 28 

Battle of Calabozo 42 

Elected President of Greater Columbia . . 44 

Crosses the Andes 45 

Battle of Boyaca, liberates New Grenada . . 46 
Battle of Carabobo, liberates Venezuela . . 46 
Battle of Ayacucho, liberates Peru . . -47 

Abandoned by his Generals 48 

Death . . -49 

Calabozo, Battle of, February 12, 1818 — 

Bolivar and Paez defeat Spaniards . . .42 

303 



The Path of the Conquistadores 



Caroni River, location of El Dorado . 






• 14 


Friars massacred .... 






• 35 


Casas, Bartholomew de Las . 






• 7 


Cassava bread 






• 139 


Manufacture of ... 






. 148 


Castillos, Los, formerly San Thome — 








Stormed by English 






. 20 


Present ruins 






• 171 


Chacon, Don Jose, Governor of Trinidad 






• 23 


Charles V abolishes Indian slavery 






. 12 


Ciudad Bolivar, formerly Angostura . 






• 35 


Reached by Raleigh . . . 






. 21 


Blockaded by Bolivar . 








• 35 


Abandoned by Spaniards 








36 


The modern city . 








189 


During Matos's Revolution 






197 


, 219 


Public improvements . 








199 


Cocoa-growing in Trinidad . 








73 


Appearance of plantations 








85 


Coco-nut industry in Trinidad . 








54 


Crown grants 








68 


Profitable industry 








73 


Columbus, Christopher 








1 


Names Trinidad . 








3 


Description of Serpent's Mouth . 






4 


Discovers pearls at Margarita 






4 


Transported to Spain in chains 






6 


Corsicans in Trinidad 






68 


Woodcutter at Barrancas . . . 






150 


At San Felix 






171 


At Ciudad Bolivar .193 


Dorado, El — 


Origin of Legend 13 


Expedition of Ordez .15 


Expedition of de Berrio . . . . .16 


304 











Index 



Dragon's Mouth — 

Appearance 5 1 

Columbus passes 5 

Nelson passes ....... 24 

Ferdinand of Aragon 4 

Ferdinand VII, tennis game with Bolivar . . .27 
Friars- 
Befriend Indians 11 

Massacred in revolution 35 

Buried treasure ....... 209 



Germany — 

Sounding around Margarita . 

Securing Venezuelan meat trade . 
Gold- 
Discovered in Guiana by Raleigh . 

Buried by monks 

Callao Mine 

Mining difficulties 

Great Britain 

Seizes Trinidad 

British officers in Bolivar's army 

British Legion 

British Legion wins Battle of Carabobo . 

Government of Trinidad . 

Naval station at Trinidad . 
Greater Columbia organized by Congress of 
gostura 

Indians — 

Before the conquest 
Treatment by Spaniards 
In Venezuela at time of Bolivar 
Guaranos along Orinoco 
Dislike of " Commissions " . 
East Indians in Trinidad 
Coolie indenture system 
X 



• 74 

. 161 



19 
209 
284 

287 



• 24 

33, 30 

• 43 

• 46 

• 76 

• 75 



An- 



44 



8 

9 

33 

147 

165 
60 

76, 85 



305 



The Path of the Conquistadores 



231, 237, 241, 246 
255 
255 
261 
272 
260 

*4 

5 
7 

74 
16 



Llanos — 

Typical households on 
Transportation across 
Ranch life on 
Hunting 

Medicinal plants . 
Parasol ants . 

Manoa, city of El Dorado 
Margarita, Pearl Island — 

Discovered by Columbus 

Occupied by Spaniards . 

German naval station 
Marequita, Cacique of, visits Spaniards 

Negroes — 

Labour in Trinidad 

Negro judges .... 

Negroes v. East Indians 
Nelson passes Trinidad 

Oil— 

Importance of Trinidad deposits . . . . . 74 

Guyaguyare field 88 

Ojeda, Alonzo de, names Venezuela .... 7 
Ordez, Diego de, expedition for El Dorado . . 15 

Orinoco — 

Columbus passes 4 

Raleigh ascends 18 

Bolivar's military base 34 

Entrance to Pedernales mouth .... 134 

Vagre passage 144 

Flora and fauna along 145 

Paez, " Uncle," First President of Venezuela — 

Guerilla warfare 38 

Joined by Bolivar 41 

Captures gunboats with cavalry . . . .42 

Turns against Bolivar 48 

306 



73 
79 

84 
25 



Index 



Port of Spain, Trinidad — 

Appearance from harbour ..... 56 

Population 60 

Society in 66 

Raleigh, Sir Walter — 

Seizes Trinidad 17 

Ascends Orinoco . 18 

Last expedition 20 

Execution 22 

Revolution in Venezuela . . 101, 197, 219, 292, 295 
Robinson Crusoe shipwrecked on Tobago Island 

San Felix — 

Captured by Bolivar 

Serpent's Mouth — 

Description by Columbus . 

Passage in " Geraldo " 
Slavery — 

Indians under Conquistadores 

Abolished at instance of Pope . 

Sale of women along Orinoco 

Negro slavery abolished by Bolivar . 
Spain — 

Occupies Trinidad and Venezuela 

Treatment of Indians .... 

Driven from Trinidad by English 

Misrule in Venezuela .... 

Rebellion in Venezuela 

Atrocities of Royalists .... 



50 

35 

4 
125 

10 
12 
20 
3i 

7 

8 

24 

32 
29 

30 



Temperature — 

In Trinidad .... 
Up Orinoco .... 
In Ciudad Bolivar 

Theatre- 
Travelling show at San Felix 



65,95 
• 147 
. 203 



173 



307 



The Path of the Conquistadores 



Trinidad- 




Named by Columbus . 


. 3 


Spanish conquest . 


. . 9 


Captured by Raleigh 


. . . .17 


Spanish occupation 


. 22 


English conquest 


. . . .24 


Population 191 1 . 


. . . .76 


Venezuela — 




Named after Venice 


. 7 


Spanish conquest . 


. 8 


Independence declared 


. 28 


National Government . 


. 280, 294, 288 


State Government 


. 199, 216 


Local administration 


. 142, 152, 279, 282 


Trade 


. 300 


Population .... 


. 284 



Welzers — 

Granted Venezuela concession . . 15 

White population — 

Of Trinidad, 163 in 1773 23 

Of Trinidad 191 1 ..... . 76 

Of Venezuela 1817 33 

Of Venezuela 191 1 284 

Woods — 

Of Trinidad .86 

Of the Orinoco . 170 

Of the Llanos . . . . . . 272 



UNWJN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. 



